Desires of my Heart

There's something completely freeing about swinging. I don't know the last time (besides tonight) that I've sat on a swing and actually worked up the momentum to get going. I don't think it helps that I usually get a little nauseous when I swing, but tonight my stomach did pretty well. I wonder what an onlooker would have thought when I started to smile at the apex of one of my swings. I don't know about you, but I usually try to control my facial expressions in public, because if I don't, I tend to start giggling about some memory or funny thought. Tonight, though, I was just enjoying the sensation of swinging through the nice evening air, looking out on the Willamette River, and listening to NeedtoBreathe, so I let go of my control and I smiled. I know that it's not such a weird thing to see me smile - it's more the circumstance that I smiled in. There was no reason except that I have a great God and I got to enjoy His presence.

I've been struggling lately with something that's been in my mind for a little bit. I know that at this time in my life, as I'm giving my heart to God, I'm vulnerable to Satan's little attacks. Yes, I have this epic new foundation with God, yes, He's hearing my prayers and answering them, yes, He's blessing me beyond belief - of course Satan will try to distract me away from this great relationship. He's using such a simple thing, such a gift from God (when He gives it in His own time, not when we try to take it in ours), to pull my aim from pleasing God to pleasing myself. Once this desire of mine comes in front of my desire to serve God, it becomes an obsession, and it takes over my prayer life, and it takes over my thoughts, and my dreams, and everything that has been built up by the Lord starts to tumble down. So. I need to give this desire to God and leave it with Him. I know that He can take it, and store it somewhere safe, nurture it and grow it, so that when He's ready to give me His gift, that desire will be mature and aimed at Him. I need to give up this hunger and accept the hunger to read His love letter to me, because I know for a fact that the hunger for His Word is one that will be satisfied, and not only can I be satisfied, but I can be completely full from it.

The verse that has been coming to the forefront of my mind these past few days is Psalm 37:3-4: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness, delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of you heart." I know that eventually this desire that I have will be realized, but I need to delight myself in Him every day first, without a single thought of what I will get out of it. It's not a game. It's not cause and effect. It's life and love and dying for Christ; being with Him, just sitting at His feet, that's enough of a blessing for me. That's the desire of my heart right now. He'll take care of everything else in His perfect timing, and I'll sit at His feet and wait on Him unreservedly in the meantime.

God bless :)

California or Bust (I don't even know what that means...)

"Therefore I way to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?" -Matthew 6:23-27


"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness , and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." -Matthew 6:33-34


"Ask, and it will be given to you' seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" -Matthew 7:7-11


I am always amazed when God answers my prayers, especially the ones that are unspoken and as of yet unthought, when they're just a feeling that has no substance yet, no form. I know that God answers prayers, but I am in a time right now where God is blessing me by being especially close and especially clear to me about what I should do, where I should go, and what verses I should read. I am cherishing this time I have with Him, because I know that it might not last. Oh, He'll be there, I just know that there are going to be times where I'm not as receptive. Complacency does that to me. I guess that's why I love moving, because moving upsets the flow of life. Moving means losing the close contact of close friends, and if you choose as I did to move away from family, it means losing the comfort of having a home where you know the inhabitants. Moving is my mountaintop experience. And this move has been the best yet. Through this move, my walk with God skyrocketed, because it required me to let go of my closest friends, to let go of my security, to let go of my hard-earned cash, and to throw it all to the cross. I am freer than I have ever been, and I am closer to God than I have been in my whole life. Yesterday was the day that I finally understood the meaning of delighting myself in the Lord, regardless of the desires of my heart (Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. -Psalm 37:4). The choice to love Him every morning is now mine alone - there are no expectations to disappoint, no friends to be accountable to if I live my life in sin... it's just me and God. And that has added a new dimension to my relationship with Him.

Of course, through this whole process, I have been giving Him one desire at a time, letting go of my identity and my wants, my hopes and my dreams, and allowing myself for the first time to be pliable in His hands. I have never before these last three weeks actually understood how to let go of something that I thought was important. One of the outcomes of this surrender is letting go of something when God takes it, especially if it's something you've been holding on to for a while. It is so much easier said than done, but once I let that desire go, I found joy. God has called me back to California, and I am joyful.

If He had told me not to go to Oregon three months ago, I would have been crushed. Oregon, as I've been telling my landlords and old friends, is the magic of my childhood. Having spent my childhood in Oregon, I saw that magic and I gravitated to it. The place I was living stretched out before me like a desert, and Oregon beckoned with its greenery, with its rain, and with its nostalgic memories. Oregon was the place to be. I fasted for three days in order to see if it was God's will to go. The only answer then was wait, and so I did. And God blessed that. He told me yes, and I said my goodbyes, and I went. And it has been like a church retreat, just for me, a month-long sabbatical from my life, where God has drawn me closer to Him and has blessed me so incredibly with His overwhelming presence. He has also slowly been changing my heart towards California, so that I can look at it and see not the desert, but the refreshing and beautiful oasis that God prepared for me inside of the desert. I can go home with the knowledge that either way I went, whether it was Oregon or California, God had prepared the way, and He would bless the way. At this time in my life, I feel the pull of the Spirit leading me to California. It could be that in two years, He will pull me back to Oregon, to finish out my school and to live my life serving Him.

For now, I know that God answers my prayers, and He directs my steps, and He will never leave me. All of these things I have read in His Word and have experienced, and I am so excited to serve Him and delight in His ways, no matter where I am or who I am with. I have no regrets about leaving Oregon, and I am thankful that God spoke to me clearly enough to let me know that with His will there can be no regrets. And I am in His will. I am thankful also for the time He allowed me to take away from work and school, and for the newly laid foundation of what I know will be a long and fruitful relationship with my Lord, Savior, and Creator.

God bless :)

"Quest for Love"

My grandma gave me four Elizabeth Elliot books, and I started reading one titled "Quest for Love". It's uh... interesting. Enlightening. Kind of convicting. It's a bunch of love stories, ending both good and bad, with a running commentary by Elizabeth. She uses her own experience and scriptural reference to back up her opinions and convictions, and I'm finding that I agree with her on a lot of things. She's probably in her 60's or 70's by now, and I think that the book I'm on now was written in the 90's, so the information and the way it's presented seems a little dated, but the cool thing about God is that He doesn't change, which means that His values don't either. For all of you guys reading my blog (if there are any): I would suggest reading some of her books, because she talks a lot about the man being the initiator and the spiritual leader, and she backs it up with scripture. It's an old (but these days new) take on the way relationships and marriages should form, and I like the way she thinks :p.

As for my take on things... I've always held the conviction that I wasn't going to kiss until I get to the altar, but I've been wondering lately if that was just because of the pact my sister and I came up with when we were little (I still remember the night we decided on it, but I have no idea how or why it even came up... we were like 5 and 7 years old), or if God gave that to me and wants me to keep it. Looking back at the way that I've been raised and the way that I react to certain things leads me to believe that God gave me that conviction.

Everyone who knows me has probably noticed my tendency to get claustrophobic when too many people are around, when I haven't had enough sleep (remember a certain snow trip after the dog peed on my sleeping bag?), or, most importantly, when people touch me. I've always had a sensitivity to touch that is set off really easily, usually by hugs. I'm not going to lie, I've had more of a problem with guys on this one than girls, because for some reason, certain guys just love girl hugs. It happens with girls, too, if I don't know them well enough. I always have to see the hugs coming... surprise hugs freak me out. My issue is that hugs should be reserved for family or for spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends/trusted friends (and keep in mind that this is my conviction and I am in no way trying to make people feel guilty or force my views on you). So it's always bothered me when people I barely know, especially guys, come up to me and want a hug. My personality is largely non-confrontational, so when this happens I don't know what to do - I don't want to hurt their feelings, but at the same time, I feel uncomfortable. When I was younger I let myself be hugged and then avoided goodbye situations with the huggers, but these days... I figure I'm old enough to be respected for my convictions.

That was a little bit of a rant... what I'm saying, though, is that I am actually thankful that God gave me this possibly uptight personality, because it actually protects me from getting into trouble with guys. God made me both claustrophobic and extremely disgusted by spit, and that's probably the best possible defense against sexual immorality for me. It also makes me laugh - only God would think of using my aversion to spit to ward off guys. I figure that God will give me a tolerance for saliva when He's good and ready for me to be married. At this point (and I know I'm only 18, I won't meet my future husband for a while... but still. It's good to know these things ahead of time) I trust that God is preparing my future husband for me, just as He's preparing me for my guy.

I'm still grossed out by spit, so I'm pretty confident that my day at the alter isn't close. Also, the fact that I'm single has a lot to do with that. Probably.

God bless :)

I'm at my grandma's house

And it's fun. I was really surprised to find that I found an open network, so I'm able to connect to the internet for a little while. I was really excited to be able to do that, not gonna lie... and I'm a little ashamed that I depend so much on the internet. Such is the life of today's average teenager, and while I'm technically an adult, I tend to fall back on things that seem trivial and largely unimportant (like NEEDING to see if someone's commented on something witty you said 20 minutes ago on Facebook - guilty).

It turns out that God rewards the patient. And it's interesting - I had just made the decision to fix something that I thought I had done backwards, after waiting all this time (I know this is vague, and that I've been pretty vague over the past few posts, but bear with me for a little bit - I'm figuring this out about as fast as you are), and when I went to do something about it, God gave me the assurance that it was all okay. The minute (literally, I decided to do it and then acted on the decision in about 60 seconds) I gave up what I was hoping for, God gave it to me. It could be annoying, if it weren't so perfect. Like... if we were all in grade school and God was that little-miss/mister-perfect who always had the right answer and would wait for you to acknowledge that they knew it all along, then I would be really annoyed. But thankfully, God doesn't come off as smug and He certainly doesn't rub it in our faces that He literally is the know-it-all. Thank goodness. Or thank God, that's probably more appropriate. Does anyone else feel weird when they say thank God for something that describes God? "Thank God that God gave me blah blah blah....". I mean, obviously we're thanking God and giving tribute to His essential awesomeness... but it seems to me like it's blasphemous to say "thank goodness" when you're talking about God, doesn't it?

Sorry, that was a weird spinoff. But uh... thank God that God doesn't smugly say "I told you so" when we figure something out that He's been patiently pointing to the whole time. Because (and getting back the point) He's told us to surrender, to take up our cross, to follow Him, to be willing to sacrifice things that are materially important to us. It's always been tough for me to really give Him my desires, because for some reason I've always felt that if I tell God what I really want, He'll take that dream and He'll throw it away, and then He'll tell me to be happy with what He's given me, which in my head is always something really terrible, like my life lived single or something. And it's still tough. It's a struggle to tell Him the desires of my heart, because that makes me vulnerable. It's a struggle to give Him something that I really really want because I don't want Him to see what a teenager I am. But the cool thing is that once I gave up one of my biggest desires, He took it, and He blessed it. And He did it in a minute. I am so overjoyed to be able to see results so fast, because I know He usually takes more time than we would like to fully answer a prayer (I think I waited two years on one thing before He blessed it).

All that to say... God rewards the patient, even those who may not have been as willingly patient as maybe they should have been (me, for instance). And He confirms things in the most interesting ways. As I said yesterday, I am so excited for what God has in store for my future.

God bless!

Fork in the road

I don't do well with choices. You could say I'm wishy-washy; I'll talk to one person with one opinion and completely get what they're saying, completely agree with them, and see all of their points, and then I'll talk to another person with a different opinion and I'll do the same thing. I don't know why I can't make a decision and stick to it, and I don't know why I always need someone to advise me. It's just who I am. And it's not like I have no opinions, it's more like... there are certain things that I feel strongly about, and then there's everything else. I'm swayed by the last person I talk to. That's why I try to surround myself with people whose opinions come from Godly wisdom, because in the past, my wishy-washiness has given way to standing on shaky moral ground. But thank goodness I have God to whisper in my ear when I'm facing a dilemma where both sides have it right, and both sides are good. God knows what's best for me and He opens and shuts doors accordingly. The only problem here is that there are two doors open, and both lead to great places. But I really do feel God nudging me toward one door over the other (and again, I can't tell you how I feel that, but I do) and I am so grateful that He answered my prayer in that regard. It gives me a rest from stressing out about the future and it gives me something to look forward to. It also makes me really excited that I'm hearing God loud and clear, and I have never felt closer to Him.

We go through different "seasons" in our lives, and while I know that this great season of growth and that feeling of the mountaintop high will pass, I am hoping that instead of following previously set patterns, I'll plateau and stay closer to my Savior instead of peaking and then plummeting. Usually the plummet lands me in a dry and lonely place. But God is always there, I've learned that it's my choice to be with Him or to walk away. And I'm sorry if all of this seems elementary and basic, but all of these things that my head has known for years are being realized by my heart, and it's really exciting to me. Just as God gave understanding of His word to those in Nehemiah, He is giving me that understanding every time I read it.

This time, God has given me the confidence to know that I am picking the right door, and the transformation from a girl who can never decide without a second opinion (unless the choice involves chocolate, in which case it's always going to be the chocolate no matter what anyone else says) to a girl who can hear that still, small voice is underway. I'm so excited for what God has in store for me!

God bless

I wrote this a little while ago, figured it could use some airing out

God's been showing me the power of prayer.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

"Call to me, and I will answer you , and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know." Jeremiah 3:33

The power of prayer is such a huge thing, and we (myself included), as modern day Christians, have forgotten it. Last weekend I had the incredible opportunity to talk with my grandma, who is a woman of tremendous faith and has had so many amazing experiences with our Savior. She mentioned this morning that God is always with us, whether we realize it or not. He works through us whether or not we notice it, and He never leaves our sides.

I was incredibly humbled and overjoyed to find out that God has used me in a profound way to impact the lives of people who are close to me. The fact that I couldn't see it only serves to remind me that I wasn't the one to change anything; it was God who chose me as His vessel to do His work. I am reminded that every prayer, however short it is, or how inconsistently it's whispered, is heard by God. I'm shocked and amazing every time that a prayer of mine is answered within the day that I pray it, and my faith is growing with each answer. I can't tell you how good God is to me, and how much He's changed me even in the past week.

I want you guys (whoever reads this) to try something new this week: be prayer warriors. The power of prayer is incredible, so amazingly powerful. Jesus says that with the faith of a mustard seed we can tell the mountains to move, and they will. Pray this week, use that faith to move your mountains. Pray for God to move in your lives and show you something spectacular. I know He'll do it, because He's done it for me. In fact, that's my prayer this week, that each and every one of you prays like crazy, and that God shows you a little bit of His majesty, a little taste of His glory, and a little peep of heaven.

Guys, please don't ever hesitate to go to God with your prayers. He hears you. He loves you. He'll answer you. And He'll use you. 

God bless :)

Seeing as how I didn't post a blog yesterday, I'm going to post two today! Hope you're ready for it :)

It's interesting to me how God confirms things. He communicates in so many different ways, so it's tough to figure out if it's really Him, or if it's just me trying to come up with an idea. It's always a fine line when He does tell me things, though, and I can never fully explain why I'm sure that He wants me to do a certain thing. Take my move to Oregon, for instance: I was completely positive that Oregon was the place for me, and God was going to use me in really awesome ways here. And He did! He was true to His promise, and my walk and the walk of those close to me were redeemed and brought closer to God! So that in itself was confirmation to me.

So I don't know why I stress out when I want to know where God wants me if I'm not sure about it. I usually end up going back to one of my favorite verses, Philippians 4:6-7: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let you requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus,". James 1:5 further elaborates: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, ad it will be given to him".

So basically... I don't know why I worry. I know that God will answer my prayers if I have faith (these verses are just the beginning of many where God promises to answer our prayers: "So Jesus answered and said to them, 'Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." - Mark 11:22-24;     "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had prosed He was also able to perform." - Romans 4:20-21;       "So the Lord said, 'If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you." - Luke 17:6).

I also came across Romans 10:27: "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.". That's how you exercise the faith muscle! It's so simple, so obvious, but there it is. I know that God has already answered my most recent "what do I do now" prayer. I'm just waiting on His perfect timing now. Stress over, cue contentment. Thank you, Lord, for being faithful, even (and especially) when I'm not.

Change is in the air

Sooooo... after getting lost in the OSU campus for about 40 minutes, I finally found the building that hosted Real Life's (the college group at my church) Freshman Night, just in time to catch the tail-end of the last speaker's speech. Woot woot. I did get to meet some people, though. I can't remember most of their names... hopefully I'll be able to get them again without doing the whole "yeah, I've known you for a year and I still don't know your name" thing. Which, sad to say, I've done with a few people.

Anyways... I don't really have any deep pondering message to post tonight, so I'm going to talk about chocolate and the confusing names of Oregon's porta-potties (this is a request from Brandon, by the way...).

I've been here for two weeks now, and every time I go to the store, I get this really annoying health food mind set - dried fruit, almonds, and little cheese things for snacks, and no chocolate or cookies. I get this holier-than-fat foods type mentality, forgetting that in about a half hour, when my daily craving for chocolate and things that will actually be satisfying kicks in, I'm going to be mad at myself for not buying them. And literally, it's a daily obsession. You would think that I, the queen of chocolate, would at least remember to get a candy bar or something, but noooooo. I've been to the store at least three times now, and all I have to show for it is a package of babybell cheese and dried cranberries. But I did show a little spark of intelligence when I bought this tub of belgian chocolate pudding, because it's rich enough for me to only eat a little, but chocolate enough to almost satisfy my craving. I guess it's a little bit of a compromise (I'm determined not to gain the freshman 15, especially since I'm not even a freshman yet). So... yay for belgian chocolate pudding.

And the porta-potties, oh my goodness. Someone here thought that it would be a FANTASTIC idea to start a porta-potty business and name it "HoneyBucket".
...
What?? Why would honey agree to be linked to something that is obviously neither sweet nor good to eat? I mean, come ON, have a little self respect. I was chatting with Joel and Sarah, and Joel made a good connection - "maybe they were thinking of Winnie the POOH and his honey...". I laughed. It's plausible. I've promised myself that I'm never going to use the disillusioned porta-potty. It doesn't need people humoring it - the sooner it realizes it's got a problem, the sooner it can fix it.
Only in Oregon. I realize that I've said that more than once to myself - Oregon is a pretty strange place.

All right, I'm done rambling. Good night, and God bless :)

Armor of God

I really wish that the metaphors mentioned in the Bible were more than just concepts. Wouldn't it be great if we could dress up in the actual armor of God? "Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, have put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" - Ephesians 6:14-18.

I haven't thought of the armor of God for a while, but I came across it this morning when I was reading through a little devotional book I have, in the section for temptations. I was just thinking how awesome it would be if we could just do away with our sin issues (I don't know about you, but there's always a little battle going on my head between the saved side of me - the "new man" - and the sin nature that is tucked away in everyone's soul) by using the proverbial "easy button" - I guess in this case it would be more like an "easy suit of armor". It would be suh-WEET if we could just grab this belt of truth (I wonder if that's the inspiration behind Wonder Woman's lasso of truth...), stick on a big old breastplate that makes us righteous, put on some shoes that preach peace to the world without us having to say a word (it's always been an issue for me to talk about my faith), pick up a shield that essentially stops the fiery darts of Satan (which I'm going to assume is temptation - I really want this shield), cram on a helmet that takes us to heaven, and wield this sword that in my mind is like the one that the angels guarding the Garden of Eden have, with flames and this sense of unbeatable awesomeness. How amazing would it be to walk down the street in that outfit? Nobody would have the guts to mess with you, and what with having all of this great Godly stuff on you, sin would just... go away.

But isn't it just like us to look for the easy way out? As much as I hate to admit this, it's probably a good thing that God doesn't have an "easy suit of armor" that we can put on whenever we feel tempted. If we had some material possession that saved us from ourselves, then what need would we have for Jesus? Facing temptation builds character (does anyone else hate that statement? "Son, go rake the backyard." "It's too hot, I don't want to!" "Raking the yard in one hundred and ten degree heat builds character." *sigh...*). Jesus had to go through it. I know you're thinking "but Jesus is God, He's kind of got the upper hand on sin here, seeing as how He's the Creator of the universe and Savior of mankind and all,", and I KNOW, RIGHT? That's what I thought too. But there's a verse in James that says "Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him" (James 1:12). If we didn't have to endure temptations, what would we have to look forward to? If there's no mountain to climb, then we would never have the relief and elation that is experienced upon reaching the top and the sweet, sweet knowledge that the worst is past. If there was an easy way, a material way, to deny our sin and stop it in its tracks, the muscle of our faith would atrophy and the very thing that is sacred to us (i.e., the fact that we are delivered from our sin and saved from hell through Christ Jesus) would lose importance and turn from something that is extraordinary into something that is mundane and not needed. Even though I wish that I didn't have to really sacrifice the things that my flesh loves in this world, I know that every time I do, every time my "new man" beats out the sin nature and I, by my own choice, choose to pursue the righteous path, I have this sense of triumph, of complete joy that I am (with Jesus's assistance) becoming more and more like Him. Of course I fall through - I'm human. But the fact that God enabled us to fight that temptation, and gives us the strength to beat it through the gifts that He's given us is a blessing and a faith builder. That, coupled with the knowledge that every day is a new day in Christ, and that our sins are flung as far as the east is from the west (every time I say that phrase, the song pops up in my head) the minute we fall, is enough to encourage me to work out my faith muscle and build it up enough so that next time, doggone it, my "new man" will win.

All that to say, I guess I'm glad that we have the option to work out our faith muscle instead of taking the easy way out. All the more for God to use when He needs it, you know? I hope that what I said encourages you to work out your faith muscle too. "It burns so good!!" God bless :)

-Saved by Grace

Something God's been showing me

These past two weeks have probably been the toughest two weeks I've had to face in my life, due to the fact that I moved to another state by myself, with no friends and no support here (that is not to say that I have no friends or support at all; I have amazing friends and family back home and I am grateful to lean on them when things get too unbearable and lonely on my end of things). But while they've been hard, these past two weeks have provided an opportunity for me to evaluate where my life is going to go, what shape it will take, and how I view it. 

So where is my life going? While I'm not sure where I'm going to be in 5 years, I do know that the only way to make those 5 years (and the rest that follow) meaningful is to live every day like it's my last. And I know how hard that statement really is to actually live out, because I've tried. Somehow, life in and of itself can be pretty boring. So I'm really going to have to make an effort to give this living thing a good run. Fortunately, I have a mentor Whose track record is impeccable - you might even say perfect. I've discovered over the past two years that God is the one thing (or Being) who makes life worthwhile. It's mentioned in Psalm 139:13-16 that God formed our inward parts, that He skillfully wrought our frames, and that while our substances were yet unformed, He saw them. He tells us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. He promises a life after life where life never ends and even the memory of pain and sin is erased. Consequently, my life is dedicated to giving my days to the God who created them. My life is traveling the path that God laid out for it before I was born. 

What shape will this life take? Only God can know that. For now, I'm content with the shape it's been given (kind of squiggly, with no real rhyme or reason). We are the clay to God's hands, and I am determined to make my life (if I can take my pride and stubborn will out of the mix) pliable for Him and His plan.

How am I going to view it? Thank God I'm not as cynical and sarcastic as I used to be, because if I were, no one would enjoy reading this blog. Before I gave my life over to Christ I had a quick temper and a sarcastic mind. I was mad all the time and complained almost constantly. I always had something to be mad about and usually, everyone knew the subject of my anger. But now, my view on life is tempered by God's eternal perspective and colored by one of my favorite passages, Colossians 3:14: "But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection". My outlook on life is now significantly better, thanks to all of the work God has put into making my heart useful to Him, and I'm doing my best to live up to the passage in James where it says to "count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience." (James 1:2-3). My worldview has been blessed with a God filter, and I will rejoice and maybe make a fool out of myself by dancing and singing His praise.

One last thought: I want to share with you the verse that brought me back to my Maker, Philippians 4:8: "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things". God bless :)