Psalm 40

"I waited patiently for the LORD to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be
astounded.
They will put their trust in the Lord."

God has given me a new song to sing; a new direction to follow. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own plans, that I fail to see that His plans are so much better than mine. It is easy to get caught up in what could have been, or "if this had gone the way I wanted it to" and miss the blessings that He has in store. And then I have to remind myself that "this" isn't about me at all. It is about HIS glory...not mine. I am not my own anymore.

I am so glad that I am NOT in control. I like the picture in Psalm 40 of God setting me on the ground (not plopping me there) but steadying me as I walk on solid ground. I can just picture Him holding me by the hand, like a parent would to a toddler learning to take her first steps. And that people will see what God has does in our lives and they will be astounded -not at what we're doing, but at what God has managed to do in our lives. Wow. I am so not worthy of His love, but I am so thankful that He chose to give it to me anyway.

Happy Times

The last two days I have been on Cloud Nine. It has just been really cool to see God working in my life and how He orchestrates every part of it to His glory, and not mine. I am just excited to see what else He's got up His sleeves. I'm pretty sure it's going to be awesome.

I've enjoyed the winter Olympics so far, but I guess I enjoy the summer Olympics more. I guess I relate better to them. I love gymnastics (mainly cause I did it for 4 years...I've heard rumors that it stunts a person's growth..hmmm) swimming (I loved swimming during the summer...it was the only thing we could do outside) track (200 meter rocks) and soccer (my favorite...I quit gymnastics for it). Fond memories :)

I was supposed to go caving this weekend with my Sunday school class, but a couple things happened. 1) Played Ultimate Frisbee and pulled all sorts of muscles on Wed. 2) Woke up with a fever Thursday morning. Feeling much better today, but no caving tomorrow. Probably a good thing...probably would have hurt someone or myself :)

I hurt all over on the outside, but inside I'm full of joy. God is good!

Randomness

Sometimes I'll be doing really ordinary things and it will hit me that:

1) I'm driving a car! I remember when I first started driving my Ford F150 and couldn't believe someone had actually issued me a license. (It took me three tries to get my permit)

2) In 2006 I'm going to be turning 22. I remember that when I was 13 and I thought 21 was OLD. My perspective has changed somewhat :)

3) I'm an adult. I really don't know what adult really means. There are times when I feel that I'm a junior high student trapped in...I was going to say adult body, but I'm the same height I was in junior high (I stopped growing in the 5th grade). And then there are times that I feel like I'm 40.

4) I can fly on a plane by myself. I know not such a big deal, but then it is to me. Cause I like to travel.

Okay that was kinda random. I couldn't get to sleep last night and was just lying in bed thinking. And that was what I was thinking about. I need to get a life :)

He Loved Me First

I really didn't know what to post about since it is Valentine's Day. I've never really ever enjoyed this "holiday" seeing as I've been single for every single one of them. But I didn't want to dwell on that fact either. One of my favorite poets is Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was born in 1806, and when she was in her early 20s she became an invalid. She was a bright young woman with big dreams. She wrote some of the most romantic poetry, and she married the love of her life, Robert Browning, when she was 40 years old. They had only known each other for little over a year and secretly eloped. I can bet that Elizabeth wondered day if someone would ever love her with her illness and her over-protective father. Yet, God was able to gets past all those obstacles in her life and provide her with the right man, at the right time. Here one of my favorite poems written by Elizabeth:

Sonnets From the Portuguese XLIII

How do I hove thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth an breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith;
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints -I love thee with the breadth,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

(Robert used to refer to Elizabeth as his "Portuguese." I thought that was cute.)

And what amazes me more is, that as amazing as this poem is in describing love, it can't even come close to describing the love the Father has for me (and you).

"You unfailing live, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens."
-Psalm 36:5

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts ou fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us."
-John 4:18-19

"Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out one after another, calling each by it's name. And he counts them to see that none are lost or have strayed away."
-Isaiah 40:26

He is so good!

An Organization of the Heart

Yesterday I was at work cleaning up the office with my boss. Jane, who is both friend and employer, likes to put things in piles and deal with them later, so we were dealing with them. We started it Wednesday and will continue tomorrow. Things were pretty messy before started -crates piled up with random books, papers, memos, software, pencils and anything else office related. And the office became even messier when we started sorting through all of it. Jane's husband Jim would walk by every once and awhile, and I think he was wondering if we were actually improving the working space. But after a couple days it's starting to look more organized and the office supplies are finding a place to belong again.

Spending time organizing things always gives me time to think. And I couldn't help thinking that this is what God does in our lives, and hearts. He has such a love for us, that he takes our messy lives and tries to shape and mold us after Jesus. And the process is not always pretty to start with. There are some times that I'm like, "God, are you sure you know what you are doing...cause what you're doing doesn't seem to be making things better at all." How prideful to think I know better than God. He KNOWS what he is doing and what results they are going to bring in my life : complete transformation. He reveals the messy and the disgusting. He lets me choose between keeping it or throwing it away, and this process takes some time. It hurts, it's uncomfortable, but it causes me to cling to Him and trust that His plan is perfect and good.

I'm learning that the Christian life is full of cleaning cycles. And I'm learning I still have so much to learn and I have a ton of room to grow. And that this is a good thing. At Overflow on friday one of the things that hit me was when Jon Randles said that a lot of people get hung up on that Jesus is Savior -which is a fantastic thing- but miss Him as being LORD, teacher, coach, parent, sibling, healer, lover and for the sake of my illustration garbage man. That we only come to Him when we need to be saved but he miss out on the wisdom he can impart, the healing he can bring, and the companionship that he graces us with. Lots of things to think about. I'm just glad that He loves me enough to spend his time trying to "clean" the mess that my life is sometimes.

A Scare

Last night was hard. A scorpion bit my dog, we think. Her name is Jasmine and she's a Dachshund. She's my baby. I had wanted my own puppy for a very long time, since I was very little. Every birthday list, Christmas list, and wish list had puppy as the first entry. My dad got a Jack Russell for himself and I love Sparky, but he's my dad's dog. Well in 2001 I was going to turn 17 on September 15th. My birthday was Saturday and the Tuesday before was the World Trade Center crashes. That week was ruined for me. It was a confusing and heart-wrenching week. And I was just really down and my birthday plans turned into mush. Some really good friends came over Friday night and we watched movies and eat a bunch of junk food. They went home and I went to bed. The next morning my mother cam into my room to wake me up...a task. She pulls the covers away from my face and I think I might have given her "the look." My eyes scan left to right and land on a black, furry bundle in her arms. It was an 8-week-old Jasmine. I had tears in my eyes I was so surprised. NO ONE had ever done something like that to me before. Jasmine is sanguine and full of life and she has brought my family and me much laughter and joy. So it was really hard to see her so sick last night.

Last night, my mother was putting her in her crate in my room and she started acting funny, so my mom opened the crate and she bounded out and made it as far as the stairs and couldn't move. My mama brought her down stairs and Jasmine had no control of her paws or her head. My daddy took her from my mother and held her as all of this was going on and she just looked at me with her chocolate eyes, and she just looked in pain and so scared. I was balling and holding her head. It took her about 10 minutes to stop twitching and to be still. It was so heart wrenching to watch. I am so glad that God is in control. She's better and resting. If I find that scorpion it is going to be scum under my shoe...and if the thing stings me it's not going to know what hit it!

Excitement!!!

I did my accounting homework tonight and everything balanced and added up!!! Miracles never cease!!! The End.

Football

Out of all the sports that I enjoy, football has grown on me the last couple of years. I used to hate it. For a couple of reasons. I generally enjoy sports that I've played, so when I wasn't really "allowed to play" (in elementary school the boys generally didn't want a girl to play at all unless she had established herself a being good) when I was younger; the sport was not endeared to me. Sometimes I got to play it in P.E. (flag), but if you think my hands are small now...imagine how small they were as a 3rd grader. I could never get a good grip on the pigskin and could never throw it far at all. So I did gymnastics for a couple of years, and then when I got tired of that, I played soccer up until highschool. And then when the football players in highschool got a lot of special privileges, I pretty much thought the sport was stupid. I didn't go to any games and pretty much concentrated on school and yearbook.

But my Junior year I got a chance to play PowderPuff Football. And my pre-conceived notions of football went out the door. I think we only memorized 5 plays and that took weeks, and friends of mine that were on the football team memorized 80-100 plays. My respect for them and the game went up. And not to mention the fact that the Junior Girls beat the Senior Girls in PowderPuff made it just a little more enjoyable ( Juniors hadn't beat Seniors in about 10 years). And I think I enjoyed it more because I understood it, finally. Granted I still don't understand half the jargon and "sports lingo", but I do enjoy being at a game or watching it at home. And the yelling. I love to yell and cheer in big crowds.

And once the U Of A gets better, I'll probably even go to a game. And speaking of football, my BCM is doing a really cool outreach to the U of A team. This friday is our campus-wide worhsip event called Overflow. We do once a semester and 500-700 students show up for some fantastic worship and a godly message. Jon Randles is going to be our speaker this semester. My BCM that same night is going to do a steak dinner for the football players and Jon is going to speak at that as well. Please pray that this would be an effective outreach and that God would really speak to the guys through Jon. And even though the guys might just come for the free food, that they would leave with somthing even better.

I never though I would be writing a post about football, but enjoy the Superbowl and I hope everyone has a fantastic week!