at the end of the day

There are so many times I sit and wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't made certain choices or if I'd done things differently. I think if we're all honest with ourselves then we've all been there. I read a book recently that made a startling point. In the book the author was talking to her husband about a horrific experience he'd had as a child. He asked her what she thought he might have been like if he hadn't gone through that and he'd not made bad choices. She says God gave her the words she responded with and she said 'You're a much neater person healed than you would have ever been well.'. I keep wondering the same thing. What would I be like if that hadn't happened? Who would I be? The point is I don't know who I'd be and in fact I barely know who I am now... but my God does. He didn't make me well for a reason... he healed me. How much stronger have I become because of it? I feel so weak, but oh isn't that the point? For when I am weak, then I am strong. For His power is perfected in my weakness. Could I have ever given my all, my complete trust to God if I had been well? I'd like to think I couldn't have... that it took a wound... and it took Him to heal it. You can't get to the mountaintops from another mountaintop. You get to it from the valley. I know a few things... if I hadn't gone through what I did I'd have never met 1 of the closest friends I have right now. I thought of this today and it was mind blowing. I wondered why I'm where I am... why I have to go through this and I was so quickly reminded of all the blessings God gave me because of what I went through. My other family, the Coscia's that he put back into my life... the group of amazing people from my Tres Dias family and my incredible friend Suz. It took my valley for all that to happen. I do not have all the answers and as that wise friend reminded me, I don't have to right now! God's timing is just that... His. I know he is in control of my life and he holds the time table. Days will still be hard and some days will just plain suck, but I have some special special people there to hold my hand and walk beside me and I have my creator... that knows every hair on my head. I don't know why I am where I am or why I feel 'lost'... but He does... and at the end of the day... that's really all that matters.

Alone in a crowded room...

Have you ever been there? You are in a room surrounded by many people, but you just feel so completely alone. I don't know what my deal is, but I've been sitting there the past couple of days. Nothing completely tragic has happened or any major event that should have triggered this, but I just feel it... right in the pit of my stomach. Don't get me wrong... I've met some very great people here and I have a couple of friends that I would really like to get to know on deeper levels, but work schedules and school schedules seem to prohibit that from happening as often as I'd like. There's no real point to this blog... I guess just a vent session. We all need those sometimes. My whole plan to be funny from now on didn't seem to work so well. I know God has me here for a reason. I know he has a great plan for my life and I know he needs me to stay here for now or he wouldn't have allowed me to get a second job so easily. He totally orchestrated that one. I just feel so lost up here. I thought I came to find out who I was, but a part of me feels like I'm more lost than when I came. Sure I got some things right and I fixed some problems that I'd had, but I wonder if I'm falling back into the same pattern. Am I still allowing the enemy to torment me in all the same ways? When will what I do ever just be enough? Do I get close to people, but not too close? I just don't feel like I "fit". Maybe I don't, but maybe a part of me doesn't want to. If I "fit" does that mean I have to stay? I guess I wanted to get away from where I was so badly that I just assumed here would be all the answers... I would figure it all out and start my whole new life and be happy. It's not been quite the fairytale I planned. I guess nothing is really supposed to be. Am I making it worse than it is? It's like that feeling when you're trying so hard to get your head above water... you've fought and fought and you finally begin to see the top. You think you'll never be able to breathe again, but by the grace of God your face reaches the surface and you take a breath, but a wave immediately crashes back down on you... and your pushed again... even further down. I don't know what the answer is or when I'll ever figure it out or even what the point of this blog was other than to strictly vent it all out. Well, it's vented, and perhaps never should have been blogged about, but maybe you're there. Maybe you feel that way and those special people in your life either aren't there when you thought they'd be or they are 1200 miles away. Some days it just gets to me. Maybe it's because Carolina lost tonight :) or maybe it's because of some personal things I'm dealing with... but it's where I am tonight. The good news is I know the One person that has the answers. The Kings of Kings and the Lord of Lords knows my every need and my every desire... and that's the reason I get to keep on going... alone in a crowded room or not.

A little reminder...

I don't know about you, but I certainly need a reminder today:

My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over and so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
2 Cor 12:9-10

"I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift." I don't know where you are or what has happened in your life but I know where I've been today and I need the reminder. I've been handicapped... one too many times and today was one of those days. I need to appreciate the gift and remember I'm just a girl in need of a Savior... and when I let him take over... the weaker I get... the stronger I become. My God is ready, willing and able... but am I ready, willing and able to hand it over to Him? Seems to be a recurring theme in my life!

Look- a squirrel!

A group of my most holiest friends were together this weekend. We had a blast together and laughed til my sides hurt (they are still a lil sore). These girls are the best and I'll never forget some of the memories we made.

While we were together we began talking about a rather popular subject for Christian woman... the Mary vs. Martha saga. Now I have always been a firm believer that Mary was just plain lazy. Martha was doing all the work and Mary just sat around. We came up with many scenarios of why we thought Martha gets it a little too hard and Mary just gets off easy. For starters, Jesus seemed to always be at Martha's house. Why? Probably because Mary's was a disaster from her laziness. 1 of my closest friends decided that Mary was also a thief. When she saw our bewildered faces she continued on to say that there was no way Mary could have afforded an expensive perfume by sitting around all the time and she certainly had to have stolen it from Martha who actually did some work. (I don't know if anyone else is laughing, but this was hilarious to me... maybe you had to be there). The last and final conclusion we came to (which is my very favorite) is that Martha could have been ADD. What if the poor girl was sitting listening to Jesus and was distracted by everything? Can't you see it? Jesus is talking and Martha's twiddling her thumbs... she darts her head to the left and exclaims, 'LOOK! It's a squirrel' and jumps up completely distracted. That's funny right there... I don't care who you are.

If you know me well, then you know I mean no disrespect to anything written or to any of these people of the Bible. It was a fun time and we had a blast turning the tides on the Martha vs. Mary saga. I think that's the point sometimes. We get so wrapped up in theology or in the seriousness of the scriptures that we forget to have fun. We think we can have fun, but we have to go away from God to do it. Don't get me wrong... I believe they should be respected and we should be serious about them sometimes, but there are days we just need to laugh. Days we need to decide that today I'm going to say Martha was ADD and today I'm going to decide that I don't have to be Mary all the time. I think we concentrate so much on trying to be 1 person or the other that we tend to forget who we are. We think God was never funny or that he's serious all the time. It's not true!! God is hilarious!! He told me so :) There are times when we need to be serious and sit before the throne of God in reverence, but there are days when I need to pull up a chair beside him with my best girlfriends and joke and laugh with him til my sides hurt and scream, 'Look! It's a squirrel!!'.

One of those days...

I had recently decided that I was just going to write funny things on my blog. I feel like there's enough serious stuff out there and I could just write things that would hopefully make people laugh. Well not today. It was one of those days where you feel like the world is against you and around every corner, it's just one more thing. I felt totally ambushed today. There weren't catastrophic things going or anything that was really a huge deal... it was just things that really hurt my feelings or bothered me.

Wednesday night is my bible study and play basketball night. I've been tired and I have a lot of packing to do so I really wasn't looking forward to going (to bible study that is... of course I wanted to play basketball). I decided I would go anyway because of course I would get something out of it. You won't believe what the lesson was on... it was titled 'He'll Raise Me Up'. Uh huh. I sat there with one of those you-have-totally-got-to-be-kidding-me looks with my mouth falling to the floor. It's like God really knows what we're going through *insert shocked expression* One of these days I'll give God a little more credit.

I don't have anything long and profound today (probably no different than normal). I don't have a big shocking piece of info, but I have my experience. Sometimes we hurt... sometimes the smallest little thing can completely shake our world and make us feel like we are nothing. Today was that day for me. Nothing completely terrible happened and I should probably be shot for even complaining about what went wrong in my world, but it just hurt. I hurt and God knew it. God put a friend available for a 52 minute (yes, I looked) phone conversation at a time she's not normally available to talk. God gave me a bible study that didn't matter if anyone else was in the room, it was just for me.

We think we have to go to God all put together. When we've got it all lined up and we're dressed right we decide that's when we tell God, "Ok... here I am. I'm dressed and ready to go. I'm laying my life down at your altar... now raise me up, please." I think if we're honest, we've never got it all together. God wants us broken. He wants us when we are at the end of the rope because in that moment... the moment we feel like we can't take another step for if we do then we will surely die... that's the moment we know we cannot do this on our own and we will never be able to. We need Him. And in the midst of that despairing cry and the act of laying my life down on His altar... He will raise me up. Maybe something like His power is perfected in my weakness. Just a thought...