Revelation

Sometimes I am so busy and so consumed with all of my "problems" I don't realize that God is continuously blessing me and has never stopped. From miraculous monetary surprises to a productive day at home, The Lord has shown me that He has never left even when I have been ignoring him. Different things in my life have been burdening me, so much so that I have felt desperate. As much as I know God hears my cries, there are times I feel ridiculous crying out to Him in my desperation. I feel like 'why am I coming to you now... I should have done this a long time ago. It's like this is all I do. I get to rock bottom and then ask for your help.' I feel like I will keep repeating the same cycle if I don't attempt a deeper relationship with Jesus on a more regular basis. I will keep hitting the bottom and fast... I'm going to attempt an analogy:
It's like I'm at the bottom of a ditch, I can jump up and feel like I am almost out for a moment but I'm just going to fall right back down. If I take to time to build a ladder it may take more energy but it will aide me climb and I will eventually be out of the pit....
I'm bad at those. But you get it.

Yesterday at church Pastor preached on the flow of blessings. I couldn't repeat it to you word for word but he brought up the ever popular verse- Matthew 6:33 But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. And then preceded to speak about how we do not give to get back. And I thought... how often to I "seek the kingdom of God" just so that he'll "add to me." I say, here Lord, I have this thing so I'm going to read some verses and pray everyday so that you'll "add" the solution to this problem "unto me." so what am I doing here, I'm giving God time to get what I want. I'm not seeking His kingdom or His righteousness, I'm seeking my own gain. Granted I'm not saying it's wrong to cast your burdens on God, He is more fit to carry them after all, but I found my self just going to God, like "ugh, I'm done, just fix it" but not really doing much to connect with Him. Saturday Rachel went to the gym and I arranged for my husband to go to a friends house. I stood in the middle of my living room and just talked to Jesus, the way I talk to my husband. At one point I turned on some music and just laid on my back on in the middle of the office, the bass from the sub-woofer vibrating the floor and just soaked it up. I worshiped with my words, with music, I wrote random thoughts in my journal, some of praise some of concern. I just spent. time. with. God. It was awesome. And then I opened my eyes and saw all around me... blessings, everywhere. My nerves were calm, my head was clear, I could see God... there, and there, and here. I was like, huh, when did this all happen? Some of it did happen that very day like my spirit finally resting and having peace, and like being productive and not lazy, feeling healthy, laughing. Then I realized that we had been stressing about bills and, hmm, look, everything is working out this month, we can catch up. Awesome. Kyle's piano, where are we gonna put it? How am I gonna get the money to tune it?... oh ok the tuner will work with me on a price maybe give me payments, and look the piano fits right over there, in the middle of my living room where we have 20's group... maybe we can have worship nights. Nice.

I just had to stop asking, stop begging for a moment and just be with God, praising Him, hearing Him, talking to Him and He immediately opened my eyes and said "look, I'm here, you're good."

shifting gears

So Thursday I found out that I am hired at Pinecrest Lancaster! I will be working 9:30-6:30 as a floater, basically filling in where needed. September is still a mystery but I know I have a job and that's an awesome blessing!! I'm thankful that God has given me abundant peace through this time of work purgatory and of course I'm thankful to have a job, escpecially one so close to home! It got pretty stressful as the days kept dwindling away and July 1st was coming up fast and still no word on my future. God really worked on keeping me sane. With this new job on the horzion I am planning on making some changes in my lifestyle too. I will very likely have a later schedule so no more rolling out of bed at 4 and going to work! Now I am going to roll out of bed and go to the pool as I have decided to go swimming with my friend Kathy in the mornings at 5:30am. On top of that, I will be only a little over a mile away from my new workplace so I plan on getting a bike and riding to and from work every day. Somedays it will be tough and I know I'm going to want to kill my self when it hits 115 outside come August, but it's a short distance and on a bike it shouldn't be that bad. I played with the idea of walking at first but I knew I would never pull it off. Oh and of couse this new regiment includes Jesus time in the morning, which I desperately need. Have you ever tried waking up at 3:50 and trying to read? Not much sinks in.

Mind you these are just plans, they haven't been put into action yet and I have a knack for giving up. You guys are welcome to keep me accountable! It helps when I get a "hey, did you like riding your bike home today in the sweltering heat?" and I get chicken to say "oh, I drove to work because..." and then make some lame excuse. I figured this out the other day when Kathy asked me on Facebook (privately, which was good) "how was curves?" and I hadn't gone yet. I was embarassed to tell her I hadn't gone and was planning on skipping it, especially when I looked at the clock, realized Kyle wouldn't be home for a couple more hours and thought 'wow...I really have no reason NOT to go.' So I got up, changed my clothes, and left. I came back and posted about being proud of my self for going to the gym, it felt good. Long story long still, I will be embarassed to say I drove to work or didn't swim so if people are asking me about it all the time, I'll be more motivated to do it every day so someone doesn't catch me by surprise. I have also learned this strategy doesn't work coming from my mom though. Weird.

This past week has been strange. PMS symptoms (2 months over due) combined with heightened stress surrounding my husband has equaled a tough week. And I'm not gonna lie, I have hesitated to seek God about it. No particular reason, I think I am just avoiding the emotional outpouring that is likely to take place. I need to find a place to have Jesus time too, my house isn't the easiest place to have personal time in. That's the glory of my new schedule. I will be getting home from swimming at about 10 till 7 and that just happens to be when everyone is asleep and/or at the gym. *sigh* It's going to be great, just getting out of the shower, all clean, fresh cup of coffee. I'm very excited about my new routine, I'll keep you guys updated on how it goes.

save the drama for your mama

I understand that people have drama. I understand that it will likely never go away. I understand that people like to talk to others about what's bothering/hurting/burdening them. I also understand that people will talk about people, regardless of it's right or wrong.

What I don't understand is why, now that I am almost 25 years old, do people still spread drama around like the common cold? Why, when we are "communicating" with those involved, do we push the blame on others? Don't we see that bringing more and more people into explanations just involves them in the problem?

So now here you are. You have an issue, you have talked to everyone and their mom about it and what has it really done? You have vocalized a negative feeling a hundred times over and now you have given it power to run rampant in your life and those around you. People have now had to choose sides and where there was once peace now there is strife.

People spend so much energy turning mole hills into mountains when they could be taking that energy to give their burdens to Christ and ask Him for help, for healing. Instead people want to sit in their stuff and splash it around, getting as many people as they can to back them up so they can feel justified.

I'm freaking sick of it. Take your drama and keep it in a safe place. Give it to God, no one else can fix it, in fact everyone else will screw it up more.