Done

I just want to share that I have finished the two hardest semester of my college education in one year! Awesome!

Music

Is it just me or does God sometimes work through music?

I was driving today, on my way to my elementary school, and I was in a major funk. I have had a lot of trouble seeing myself as anything worthy or anything in God's eyes and have been extremely distraught over this for several days. (No comments about this portion please. I am feeling better so let's just leave it at that.) I'm driving and beginning to realize I have to calm down before I get to school or I will scare my kids and teacher. (Background knowledge: I put in a set of six CD's the other day. Several old favorites and one fairly new CD that I have never listened to, but bought for one specific song.) As I'm driving. The one new CD is playing and in the midst of my distress on comes this song. This song brought such unspeakable peace to my heart. God's timing truly is perfect.

Your Beloved

Lord it was You,
You created the heavens.
And Lord, it was Your hands
That put the stars in their place.
Lord, it was Your voice
That commands the morning.
'Cause even oceans and their waves bow at your feet, O Lord.

Lord, who am I
Compared to Your glory?
Lord, who am I
Compared to Your majesty?

'Cause I'm your beloved,
Your creation,
And You love me as I am.
You've called me, chosen
For Your kingdom.
Unashamed to call me your own-
I'm your beloved.

Lord it was You,
You created the heavens.
And Lord, it was Your hands
That put the stars in their place.
Lord, it was Your voice
That commands the morning.
'Cause even oceans and their waves bow at your feet, O Lord.

Lord, who am I
Compared to Your glory?
Lord, who am I
Compared to Your majesty?

'Cause I'm your beloved,
Your creation,
And You love me as I am.
You've called me, chosen
For Your kingdom.
Unashamed to call me your own-
I'm your beloved.

[instrumental]

Lord, who am I
Compared to Your glory?
Lord, who am I
Compared to Your majesty?

'Cause I'm your beloved,
Your creation,
And You love me as I am.
You've called me, chosen
For Your kingdom.
Unashamed to call me your own-
I'm your beloved.

-By The Tree

Song

Hard to Get

You who live in heaven
Hear the prayers of those of us who live on earth
Who are afraid of being left by those we love
And who get hardened by the hurt
Do you remember when You lived down here where we all scrape
To find the faith to ask for daily bread
Did You forget about us after You had flown away
Well I memorized every word You said
Still I'm so scared, I'm holding my breath
While You're up there just playing hard to get
You who live in radiance
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin
We have a love that's not as patient as Yours was
Still we do love now and then
Did You ever know loneliness
Did You ever know need
Do You remember just how long a night can get?
When You were barely holding on
And Your friends fall asleep
And don't see the blood that's running in Your sweat
Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While You're up there just playing hard to get?
And I know you bore our sorrows
And I know you feel our pain
And I know it would not hurt any less
Even if it could be explained
And I know that I am only lashing out
At the One who loves me most
And after I figured this, somehow All I really need to know
Is if You who live in eternity
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time
We can't see what's ahead
And we can not get free of what we've left behind
I'm reeling from these voices that keep screaming in my ears
All the words of shame and doubt, blame and regret I can't see how
You're leading me unless
You've led me here
Where I'm lost enough to let myself be led
And so You've been here all along I guess
It's just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get.

-Rich Mullins

Risen

He IS Risen!

Unique

This is a bit of a rant....

Are any of us truly unique? Or are we all social chamillions? I notice in my life and personality, that I resemble those who I am with. If I have been hanging around with certain people for a long period of time I begin to pick up their mannerism, their common phrases, and even the way they move.

For example, when hanging out with my brother last year, I picked up his sayings and his mannerisms. I could hear myself speak and think, yup, that was Cory.
This year I find myself overall self being a odd smattering of a variety of my friends.

While I am generally and off smattering of my friends, I can also morph into a variety of different characters to fit whoever I am with at that moment.

This leaves a girl to wonder, who would I be without outside influences? What am I really like?

This brings me to my final thought. Maybe I wouldn't be anything without all the little influences from my friends, family, and random acquaintances. Maybe they make me who I am. Maybe what makes me unique is the unique combination of people I know.

Now that is unique.


On a different note, I seriously got the best surprise ever the other day. However, my camera is not working so well, so I will have to wait to take some pictures of it! Seriously.... Amazing.... Be excited in anticipation.

Voice

So I have had many mentor figures in my life. Most of whom I can still hear their voices in my head with a famous line or idea.

Scott = "Smile, make people wonder what you've got"

Carrie = "It's all about perspective."

Ben = Not a direct quote, but he would always let me know when I was being unreasonable and letting my emotions carry me away.

However, now that I am here in college, I have some additional mentors. As of tonight, I officially heard Travis and Laura in my head. I thought at first, "Oh, that's just my conscience" but then I realized, I don't have a masculine voice. Then I realized it was Travis who was speaking to me. Funny. Apparently, I am now officially a Navigator.

Dork

So this is a sample of my dorkiness. I color these, with a pen. This represents a lot of hours without anything better to do. Oh well. I enjoy it.

This is my most recent one.

These are some older ones....

Change

I can't play these games anymore.

In thinking about my life this year, I discovered something. I was growing in my faith and happiest last semester.

So, I'm making the change. See you on the flip side.



By the way, we're still looking for the best beaver name, or mom wins by default.

Wait

It seems all my life I have been waiting.

I don't want to be waiting on anyone or anything but God.

However, I don't know how to do this.

Recap

So this post will be all over the place because I have had so much thrown at me in the last couple of days. Therefore I will divide this post into sections.

Wasting Time

Is it just me or do you ever suddenly realize you're wasting time? I'm not talking about I could be doing something for work or school, but instead I'm relaxing. I'm talking about really wasting time.

This occurred to me last Sunday morning. With the help of God, I realized I had been wasting time. Not just time, but a month's worth of time. Part of this realization was getting past my recent apathetic state. It took God giving me a swift kick to my hind-quarters for me to realize I was lacking.

Now my natural response to this is to dwell on what a "bad Christian" I have been. This is rather counter productive because as I sit and think about how much farther I should be in my walk and lamenting about how I have let myself fall, I am not changing my attitude, I'm not praying, I'm not spending time in the word, and I am not letting God forgive me (simply because I can't).

However, once I let God change my heart and allow him to forgive me, I am able to begin to forgive myself. Once I decide to stop wasting time and give God back the reigns, I see the way God works and wonder why I ever start wasting time.

Coloring

This is just one way God showed himself to me. In my last post, I mentioned returning to a more child-like state. So today, in my three hundred level, college, power hour, math methods course, we are assigned to use a shape to create a drawing and then we are provided with crayons and asked to color our picture. I'm sure most of the people reading this will be unfamiliar with the significance of this, but this type of work is called tessellation. I used to do these everyday in high school to revert myself to a child-like state to pass the time during school. So for the hour and fifteen minutes which comprises a power-hour, I was assigned to color. This was unavoidable because we had to turn in our pictures. So, perhaps because I had not taken the time on my own, God assigned me to color for a period of time in my three hundred level math methods course.

Friends

Another example of God's work: Yesterday evening I was bummed, really bummed and I couldn't really explain why. My friend (who I had not seen in a month) called me because she had nothing to do that night and wanted to catch up. I was able to sit in McDonald's, play cards, and talk about things which really matter like God's plan, faith problems, and other struggles. I left this time with my future roommate on an incredible high!

Today, as I was standing outside waiting for my bus. Freezing and really needing to use the use the restroom. I had about another twenty minutes to wait, and I suddenly hear my name. I turn around to discover two more of my friends. The friend who is discipling me and the friend who is my bible study leader. It has also been a long time since I have seen both of them. They offer me a ride home because they are headed out that way and we chat all of the way home. It was so great to see both of them.

Beaver

So, I'm not entirely sure how this fits with God, other than he created the little guy, but I have had another beaver sighting. I think this must be the same beaver as before and he must live nearby. Kevin, I did try this time to take a picture; however, my cell phone was too full and I didn't have time to clear anything out. But, my phone is clean and waiting for the next beaver sighting. I think I shall name him. Let's have a contest..... What's the best beaver name you can come up with?