The ever present story of my life right now. Some of it scary, some of it great, a lot of it being faced as "what if's" right now.
In just the past couple of weeks change has weasled its way right under my covers. A little too intimate for me, but I believe God is working on teaching me to continually trust Him despite all the change and fear that seems to arise from change.
If it isn't obvious from what I've said so far, I do not love change. I do not look for it. In fact, I try to keep everything just the way it is. It unfortunately manifests itself in me as OCD in many ways, which I am fortunate to realize and to have had the parents I did. It is 100% due to these facts I usually, with Christ's strength and unabounding love He has lavished on me, am able to realize I cannot expect everyone to be wired exactly as me nor can I expect change to never show its face. I still struggle with it but I at least am able to work myself through it rather than becoming an overbearing thorn-in-the-flesh of all who come in contact with me.
So the changes that have recently come about, whether I've enjoyed them or not:
1) I have recently moved back into the home with my parents. A wonderful change and great place to be for the last few months of my single life. Which brings about another impending change:
2) Getting married in 124 days! Woooo...exciting and scary. I love Benjamin dearly and cannot wait to be married to him :) But it is still scary to think about all the newness that comes with being married. Not to mention I wonder if I will do a good job of being a wife. I'm sure everything will work out and I know God will take care of us, just the idea of a big change yet again forces me to jump in head first into a new phase.
3) This leads me to the change that comes with Benjamin's job. It may come as large as moving to a completely different state with no family there. Not that I'm against it. Especially if it moves us somewhere more north: we both enjoy a cooler climate. It's just knowing I may have to make new friends, I will definitately be leaving friends here behind, and will be starting from scratch is not the most fun challenge I have ever faced. I've done it and will gladly do it again for Ben to be provider, but still.
And if he is offered a job here, all the different possibilities that can come with that job.
The more I type, the more I am reminded, as God constantly is reminding me, to trust Him. The "what if's" are not for me to worry about. The unknown can be seen as a great adventure and a wonderful, new experience in trusting God. Although my flesh frequently does not want to even think this way, I am constantly turning back to the old, yet new realization of how God has everything in control. What we see as bad, whether it truly is or isn't, God can turn into being used for His glory. The entire point of life is to glorify God in all circumstances. Thus, if I take the fear of change and see it as an opportunity to trust and learn of Him, how much of a great adventure will I find awaiting for me? Not a pit to fall into, not another wound waiting to be inflicted, but a wonderful, discovery-filled, great adventure!
6.21.2010
4.24.2010
Fear: We will feel it, but does it have to rule us?
Fear. Ben and I are currently doing a bible study together on fear. Fear seems to rule my life. It is most definitely not the way I want to live. I want to live free from fear. Not allowing it to hold me back or keep me from pursuing relationships. Honestly, I want to get to a point where I choose to trust God rather than hold tight to fear.
Fear has never done me any good. I don't think it has done anything for anyone. It only serves to tear apart relationships, destroy the discipline to work. "Fear herds us into a prison and slams the door." - Max Lucado. And it's true: when you let fear take hold, all that surrounds you is darkness; light is not found in the presence of fear.
I am hoping through taking time to study God's word, learning what I most fear and how to battle it with scripture, and opening up with Ben so we can pray together, I will learn to let go and let God. Those situations I think I can control I can't. Those situations I fear turn me into a mean monster and allow me to trust no one, not even my closest friends, family, and fiance.
There is hope in Christ: 2 Timothy 1:7 - "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and discipline."
May our hearts and minds rest on this knowledge so when we fear a loved one being hurt, making a bad grade in school, failing at our job, failing our loved one or child, we will break through the chains that could confine us and live in the light of God trusting His will prevails in all circumstances.
Fear has never done me any good. I don't think it has done anything for anyone. It only serves to tear apart relationships, destroy the discipline to work. "Fear herds us into a prison and slams the door." - Max Lucado. And it's true: when you let fear take hold, all that surrounds you is darkness; light is not found in the presence of fear.
I am hoping through taking time to study God's word, learning what I most fear and how to battle it with scripture, and opening up with Ben so we can pray together, I will learn to let go and let God. Those situations I think I can control I can't. Those situations I fear turn me into a mean monster and allow me to trust no one, not even my closest friends, family, and fiance.
There is hope in Christ: 2 Timothy 1:7 - "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and discipline."
May our hearts and minds rest on this knowledge so when we fear a loved one being hurt, making a bad grade in school, failing at our job, failing our loved one or child, we will break through the chains that could confine us and live in the light of God trusting His will prevails in all circumstances.
4.18.2010
Return, O Sleep
Return, O Sleep
Where have you gone?
You once were my dear friend
But now you toss me back and forth
Eluding deep, true Rest
You once were dear
And called me true
To fellowship with you
But now you leave me wondering
where wee morn hours hath gone
Return, O Sleep
I hear you beckoning
I dearly want to come
To sit a while in fellowship
As Rest wraps secure its arms
To find my hours of no memory
Have brought with them a dawn
A dawn of hope and blissful dreams
Of no more tossing waves
Of energy renewed
Return, O Sleep
Please be my friend
Of kindred hearts combined
To hold me sweetly, tenderly
As Nights come passing by
Protect me from the looming dark
Where Rest is swallowed whole
By Monster come from Neath-the-bed
Valiantly severe body from head
Return to me sweet Rest
Where have you gone?
You once were my dear friend
But now you toss me back and forth
Eluding deep, true Rest
You once were dear
And called me true
To fellowship with you
But now you leave me wondering
where wee morn hours hath gone
Return, O Sleep
I hear you beckoning
I dearly want to come
To sit a while in fellowship
As Rest wraps secure its arms
To find my hours of no memory
Have brought with them a dawn
A dawn of hope and blissful dreams
Of no more tossing waves
Of energy renewed
Return, O Sleep
Please be my friend
Of kindred hearts combined
To hold me sweetly, tenderly
As Nights come passing by
Protect me from the looming dark
Where Rest is swallowed whole
By Monster come from Neath-the-bed
Valiantly severe body from head
Return to me sweet Rest
4.05.2010
If only every day was Saturday...
Yes, for some reason the weekend seems to just fly by. You can't make time move quick enough during the week, but your weekend you would love to enjoy and relax during just passes on by with a wink and whistle, thank you very much. I imagine a conversation with the Weekend going something like this:
"Oh I'm so glad you have come for a visit, Weekend!"
"Are you? I'm not here long. I've come to tease you."
"Come to tea..."
"Toodle loo."
And off it jaunters only to leave with the week ahead of you ready to be stumbled through. You don't have a choice but to tumble your way through it. It doesn't care if you didn't find all the rest you needed. Nor does it worry about how excitedly anxious you are for your wedding. It just keeps on trudging through the hours, minutes, and seconds. You begin to think seconds are minutes and minutes hours and hours days until your Monday becomes your Tuesday and your Wednesday your Friday. And yet by the time your Friday seems to be coming to an end, you feel as though those hours, which have become days, are really weeks.
Even worse is the speed your weekend always maintains so that days are seconds quicker than a blink and the begrudgingly slow week-month is ready to haunt before you can even begin to subconciously think of stopping the Weekend from leaving.
Thus it feels as though October is being pushed further and further away until you can watch it being sucked in by a black hole, never to return, always out of reach. I know it will come, but I am not feeling the "blink" everyone says it will be here in. I am feeling the week-month slowly turn into an entire year causing months upon years of waiting (thank goodness we weren't having to have a longer engagement than what is already planned).
"Oh I'm so glad you have come for a visit, Weekend!"
"Are you? I'm not here long. I've come to tease you."
"Come to tea..."
"Toodle loo."
And off it jaunters only to leave with the week ahead of you ready to be stumbled through. You don't have a choice but to tumble your way through it. It doesn't care if you didn't find all the rest you needed. Nor does it worry about how excitedly anxious you are for your wedding. It just keeps on trudging through the hours, minutes, and seconds. You begin to think seconds are minutes and minutes hours and hours days until your Monday becomes your Tuesday and your Wednesday your Friday. And yet by the time your Friday seems to be coming to an end, you feel as though those hours, which have become days, are really weeks.
Even worse is the speed your weekend always maintains so that days are seconds quicker than a blink and the begrudgingly slow week-month is ready to haunt before you can even begin to subconciously think of stopping the Weekend from leaving.
Thus it feels as though October is being pushed further and further away until you can watch it being sucked in by a black hole, never to return, always out of reach. I know it will come, but I am not feeling the "blink" everyone says it will be here in. I am feeling the week-month slowly turn into an entire year causing months upon years of waiting (thank goodness we weren't having to have a longer engagement than what is already planned).
3.23.2010
A Love-Hate Relationship
Yes. That is exactly what it is: a love-hate relationship. Would you like me to expound? Well, I feel like it so I guess you are about to find out.
I am currently sitting in the ceramics building with Ben for who knows which # time, for I have lost the count. I am unsure of how many more times we will frequent this building; I know he will be here much more than I with our different schedules. Yet, it still seems I am here with him most every day, once off of work.
As I was talking with my mom earlier this afternoon, I was ending our conversation when I blurted: "You know...it's just a love hate relationship. It can be so frustrating that the majority of my time with him right now is spent just being with him while he works on ceramics. But I know once it's said and done, we grow comfortable in our normal day-to-day with jobs, activities, exercise, etc., there will be times I will miss this phase of our relationship." As often as we do it, it can grow very dull for I often feel extremely useless. However, I also know it does mean a lot to him that I would spend my free time to just be with him.
It is fun to watch him intently working on a project a majority of the time. Something about his relationship with the clay, the purpose in his gaze, the gentle, yet firm, movement of his hands. The artist with his masterpiece. It is equivalent, to me, of listening to someone work on music. The art of building the masterpiece, of which most people do not understand the depth of emotion and length of time put into it.
There is also the knowledge of the support I am giving. I might not say much. I may not even be doing something or saying anything related to his work. But somehow, just being there says more to him than if I didn't go with him at all and were to later tell him it looks amazing (which his work often does).
But sometimes, I can't stand to do the same thing every day. I don't want to go with him to ceramics. I want to be free of anything that has been assigned as work, even though it is not mine to do. There really are some days I absolutely hate to be near that building.
Thus my love-hate relationship. It will end come May, when Ben proudly walks for two diplomas he has spent 5 1/2 years of his life working towards. And I will be extremely proud of him (I already am) for his accomplishment. And although I know I will initially be excited to be rid of this building, there is a part of me that, after some times has passed, will miss the time, memories, and normalcy found here.
I am currently sitting in the ceramics building with Ben for who knows which # time, for I have lost the count. I am unsure of how many more times we will frequent this building; I know he will be here much more than I with our different schedules. Yet, it still seems I am here with him most every day, once off of work.
As I was talking with my mom earlier this afternoon, I was ending our conversation when I blurted: "You know...it's just a love hate relationship. It can be so frustrating that the majority of my time with him right now is spent just being with him while he works on ceramics. But I know once it's said and done, we grow comfortable in our normal day-to-day with jobs, activities, exercise, etc., there will be times I will miss this phase of our relationship." As often as we do it, it can grow very dull for I often feel extremely useless. However, I also know it does mean a lot to him that I would spend my free time to just be with him.
It is fun to watch him intently working on a project a majority of the time. Something about his relationship with the clay, the purpose in his gaze, the gentle, yet firm, movement of his hands. The artist with his masterpiece. It is equivalent, to me, of listening to someone work on music. The art of building the masterpiece, of which most people do not understand the depth of emotion and length of time put into it.
There is also the knowledge of the support I am giving. I might not say much. I may not even be doing something or saying anything related to his work. But somehow, just being there says more to him than if I didn't go with him at all and were to later tell him it looks amazing (which his work often does).
But sometimes, I can't stand to do the same thing every day. I don't want to go with him to ceramics. I want to be free of anything that has been assigned as work, even though it is not mine to do. There really are some days I absolutely hate to be near that building.
Thus my love-hate relationship. It will end come May, when Ben proudly walks for two diplomas he has spent 5 1/2 years of his life working towards. And I will be extremely proud of him (I already am) for his accomplishment. And although I know I will initially be excited to be rid of this building, there is a part of me that, after some times has passed, will miss the time, memories, and normalcy found here.
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