yay craziness

i like craziness. 

i have a job!!! It's at a place called Marianna's Fundraisers and is like a different department of DelGrosso's Amusement Park, where I worked this summer.  {i promise, the place is better than the website.} i start thursday. aaaand it should be interesting. very interesting. still food service, which is always interesting, because there's all the food codes that you have to follow.


we have people coming over tonight and tomorrow. it promises to be...an experience. 


monday and tuesday I'm working at the flower shop i helped start in 06. the Flower Hut is a pretty cool place. especially when you do that arrive at-0800-hours-work-til-late-crash-at-a-friend's-house-for-a-few-hours-work-all-day-again-thing. hehe. i'm excited though. valentine's day is fun because there's always a ton of roses that i get to work with. and all these guys call, totally clueless about what they should get for their wife or girlfriend. so you get to ask them questions and basically choose what the girl in their life gets. it would be even better if i was a hopeless romantic...


wednesday we're doing ground work and laying trails for the Heaven Scent SAR team that i work with. yay!


thursday is first day of work. 


friday, saturday and sunday, a friend is coming up. saturday we're doing SAR training, going out to Fort Roberdeau, gonna go see a friend's gravesite and who knows what else.


oh, and I have to get in 52 hours of school somewhere in the middle... 

don't ask why i just posted this.


now that i just wrote this out, it doesn't seem as crazy as i thought it did, other than the social overload aspect of it. that will be interesting.

life?

life is crazy. i'm not sure if that's how God planned it to be...but it's how my life happens.

i got to go to Virginia last week with Generation Joshua to work on the Jeff Frederick state senate race. the team was pretty tiny (under 20 kids) and to be honest, i was kind of worried about how that would work out--i'm not a big fan of drama, but God is good and it was amazing. long story short, we fought hard, made lots of good memories, lost the race, but had fun. this was an awesome campaign to be part of.

i came straight back to the ELM staff training. somehow i find myself in the midst of helping open a crisis pregnancy center locally and all that entails, such as applications, clearance forms and background checks. (who knew that you could mess up an one page release form 7 times?? somehow, at training on wednesday night, someone mentioned to me that a good friend of mine had died that morning. blah, kind of not cool. around 20 hours of crisis pregnancy center staff training, 5 days, one funeral and lots of craziness later, here i am. ready to attack school and life? maybe not. but this i do know. 

You stood before creation
Eternity within Your hand
You spoke the earth into motion
My soul now to stand

You stood before my failure
Carried the Cross for my shame
My sin weighed upon Your shoulders
My soul now to stand

So what can I say
What can I do
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You

So I'll walk upon salvation
Your Spirit alive in me
This life to declare Your promise
My soul now to stand

So what can I say
What can I do
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You

So I'll stand
With arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all

So I'll stand
My soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

stability

i like stability. not necessarily routine, but stability. it gives me a sense of security. so i work my life out, til everything seems relatively stable. my schedule, where i keep thing, how my drawers & closet are organized, even down to who is on speed dial and in what order.

then something messes it up.

~i find out something that i considered just an annoyance was kind of serious.

~not being able to keep up with deadlines and expectations.

~being pulled out of Awana.

~getting my phone confiscated.

small things. but they throw off my sense of security--making me feel small and exposed, weak and confused, lost...anything but secure.

then i wake up, and "Strong Tower" pops into my head, and i hum it all morning. it gets me to thinking about this:

"for he will hide me in his shelter

in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

he will lift me high upon a rock.

the Lord is my strength and my shield;

in him my heart trusts, and i am helped;

my heart exults,

and with my song i give thanks to him.

the Lord is the strength of his people;

he is the saving refuge of his anointed.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

cast your burden on the Lord,

and he will sustain you;

he will never permit

the righteous to be moved.

when i am afraid,

i put my trust in you.

 in God, whose word i praise,

in God i trust; i shall not be afraid.

what can flesh do to me?

from the end of the earth i call to you

when my heart is faint.

lead me to the rock

that is higher than i,

for you have been my refuge,

a strong tower against the enemy.

 for God alone my soul waits in silence;

from him comes my salvation.

he alone is my rock and my salvation,

my fortress; i shall not be greatly shaken."

{Psalms 27:5, 28:7-8, 46:1, 55:22, 56:3-4,61:2-3, 62:1-2

i'm not secure on my own and nothing i can do will make me secure. i can't be. i'm human. not invincible. {as much as i like to think i am...} often when we set up our lives so they seem perfect, we are just setting ourselves up for disaster, like dominoes. one part gets knocked over and everything else follows. 


that's why we have God as our refuge, our stronghold, our rock. our security. he's here and he's not leaving. no matter what. when everything is a mess, God's here. when everything's perfect, God's here. he's unchanging.


he gives the strength we need.


i'm going to start trusting God more. he knows what he's doing.

Lead Me to The Rock

i kind of like music. a lot. it's saved my life more than once. sooo....don't be surprised if approximately every other post is about music.

i got the CompassionArt album the other day. i really hated it at first, but since listening to it like 6 times, i'm discovering it's actually a pretty good album. this one song, by Paul Baloche, has really hit me.

When my heart is overwhelmed
And my eyes are blind to you
And the pain of life is just too heavy to bear
When the mountain seems so high
And my faith too weak to climb
Lord, lead me to the rock that is higher than I
Lead me to the rock
Lead me to the rock
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I
When my life is hit with fear
And I fight to hide the tears
And I wrestle in my heart to know what to do
Lord, I’m welling up inside
But I know you hear my cry
Jesus, lead me to the rock that is higher than I
You are the rock, there is no other
A tower of strength, you are my shelter
You are my hope eternal
You are the rock that is higher than I

 i'll keep coming back to this, but it's true. we don't have to do life on our own. we have Jesus, our rock, with us. He's not going to move. He'll always be there for us. and He knows everything. he knows when we are crying in the inside and can't show it. He knows when we have pain so deep, so painful, inside us, pain that there aren't words for. and He cares. He's our shelter, and our daddy. He's the one who gives us the ultimate comfort.

Life

 life sometimes stinks. it doesn't go the way we planned or hoped. it brings pain we don't want. but God is still good.

i just heard this song on the radio. it's pretty epic. Jesus doesn't leave us when we fall. Jesus doesn't push us or our pain away. Jesus loves us not matter what. He's always there for us. He knows how many stars are in the sky. how many grains of sand are on the beach. and He loves us. He calls for us to come to Him, so we can know His perfect love. and when we know that love, all the pain of life, how much life stinks sometimes, it all fades away. 

thank You, Jesus!

Reach--by Peter Furler
You hold the weight of the world
Still I don’t slip through Your hands
Your love is bigger
Than just a notion built by man
I fall again and again,
But you whisper, “You’re still mine.”
You feel the pain of the world,
But you never push mine aside.

(Chorus)
And You reach for me
With a love that quiets all my fears
And You reach for me
Like a Father wipes away the tears
So many people in this world,
But I hear You calling out my name.
You reach for me.
Now I’m never gonna be the same.

You know all of my fears
There’s nothing Your eyes can’t see.
When I tried to give up,
Lord, You never gave up on me.
I give You all of my hopes and dreams,
I lay them down.
Of all the place I’ve looked,
You’re the one truth I have found.


You hold the weight of the world,
Still I don’t slip through Your hands.
You put the stars in the sky.
You know every grain of sand.

blessings

Blessings. we usually think of blessings as something that we can see as good. something that is new, or better, something good. 

but check this out. Laura Story's song, called "Blessings"

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home


Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSVqHcdhXQ

what if those sleepless nights are really a blessing? what if those tears really are blessings?
maybe we have these trials to bring us closer to God. i think they do. i know they do.