Today is an 8

Today is definitely a strong 8 on the great day scale.

Nothing absolutely life changing has happened. There were no huge surprises or wonderful, magical things, everything has just been good.

The sun was shining. My phone picked out all good songs for me to walk to class and listen to. I had a full pot of coffee in my system before noon and I remembered to grab some snacks to have for the day. Along with having little things brighten my day I randomly ran into two friends today that I normally don't get to see. AND, my curls turned out fantastically pretty.

I'm especially looking forward to babysitting tonight and walking into the house knowing that I have a 3 year old waiting to give me a hug. I will continue to swear by it, 3 year olds seriously give the best hugs in the world!

Today is an 8. Hopefully tomorrow won't disappoint.

Throwing out the stale

With my broken cartilage hurting tonight, I wasn't able to participate in worship at Salt Co. as I normally do but I think that was a blessing from God. For the first time in a while, I was able to stop and simply watch others be completely joyful, uninhibited and blissful in their precious moments with Jesus. I couldn't stop myself from smiling in just watching them. But why does watching someone else be so wrapped up in worship bring me so much joy? So much joy that a crazy smile comes across my face and I have goosebumps? I think it is that watching them is so inspiring and....blissful! It's like watching a child bask in the warm summer sun and doing whatever brings them joy. Tonight brought worship back to my heart, where I wasn't singing the words that I know, even though I do sing them to God, I think that stopping and looking around made them sink into my heart even more. I pray that God dwell in places of my heart that I have closed off or don't even realize are there, I want all of me on fire for Him and for Him to be new and fresh in my eyes daily. I don't want to become stale and flat in my faith, I've had enough of that.

Protection from the Hawks

A little less than a year ago there was someone's pet bunny running around outside of our apartment building and I thought, 'Wow, that's really sad. That bunny will never make it in the outside world' and thought for sure he would be dead within days. Today on a walk with Marne, I saw the bunny in somebody else's yard and couldn't believe that he was still around! He made it through the awful winter, the flooding, hot weather, and every predator imaginable. This made me begin to ponder, if this simple rabbit had absolutely everything against him and was resilient enough to survive, what says that I, a child of a loving and caring God, can't make it through these currents of trials and tribulations? I have a place to live with incredible people, a family that will support me and friends that will help me in whatever way possible. God will provide, I need to trust in Him and his timing and find His glory in these trials and tribulations. God will protect me from the winter, the flooding and the hawks that are lurking over my head.

Boys

I'm really struggling with guarding my heart and over-analyzing things boys say. I need to give all of these thoughts to God and let him take over.

Anthem is tomorrow night!!!!!!

Stranded Stranger

Today was a rather strange day that has left me with many questions. I feel that later in time it might be important for me to remember these strange moments so that I can see how I have grown from them and because I'm not much of a journaler we'll see how this pans out.

I was driving out of the Target parking lot and I saw a man, who looked approximately in his 30's, wearing a cowboy hat, standing outside of his truck and holding a sign that read, "Stranded. In need of truck repairs, gas and food." He wasn't making eye contact with any of the cars and I couldn't really distinguish much of his face except that he was exceptionally tanned. As I drove by I had this feeling in my heart that I should help him out, the least I could do is buy him lunch. However, my mind quickly switched over into reminding myself that I am a 20 year old female and that I could be putting myself in a dangerous position. I called a male friend and asked if he wanted to participate in a random act of kindness with me and that I would be at his apartment picking him up shortly. Within 15-20 minutes we were back at the Target parking lot and the man was gone, with no trace of his existence apparent. We both kind of blew it off saying that he must have gotten help from somebody else.

But then I got to thinking and remembered that this isn't the first time that this has happened- me driving by myself, seeing someone who could use help, thinking for a few seconds about it, deciding to help and then turning around and that person is no longer there. Another short example, this past January I was driving home on Ontario and saw an elderly woman chipping away the ice on her sidewalk left from an ice storm. It looked like a tedious and difficult job, she had an ice chisel, shovel and other tools in the snowbanks next to her. As I drove past her I decided that I had time to help, so I went around the block only to find her and her tools not there and her sidewalk cleared.

So what does this mean? Brain tumor? Vision problems? All of these human responses came to mind but none seemed logical. So I called a friend that I trust as being wise and 'in-tune' with God and talked with her. Throughout our conversation we came up with two possible ideas, neither of which we determined was the absolute correct one:

Satan is taking advantage of my willingness to help and places these people in my way and then takes them away before I can help to discourage me from helping. By including my friend in this, a friend who I have just recently gotten to know on a deeper level, this incident could create a gap in his confidence in me, my sanity and how trust-worthy I am.

OR

God is using these types of opportunities to show me how willing I am to help the people that obviously need help and are people that are strangers that I'm not as attached to. Although this willingness is a great thing and a gift that He has given me, He could be showing me that I'm quick to see the people that are easy to help, but I am not seeing the people closest to me that I love that need help and I'm not being there for them. When I called my friend to ask him to help me, he said that it wasn't something he would normally do but would love to be a part of it- so this could have opened his eyes to helping people more.

So how do I know which one is closest to right? And how do I deal with whatever one it is? If it's idea #1 how do I discern between who to help and who not to? If it's idea #2 how do I go about helping the people closest to me? I have no ideas and am open to advice, but am mostly open to prayer in finding clarification through God. I'm not losing trust over God and I have full faith that no matter what He will protect me and not give me more than I can bear, but I am being curious and want to make sure I am a discerning disciple for Him.