Good Morning Granola!

A friend moved to Seattle yesterday, and as a going away present gave me all her food :) So today I woke up with free granola for my yogurt!

God continues to work in my life in very tangible ways. He is providing exactly what I need each day, and I am honored.

What confuses me, however, is my own brain. Something amazing happened Wednesday - a miracle if you will. The Lord orchestrated incredible things in my life in a matter of minutes that I had been stressing about and trying to take care of myself for weeks. All I had to do was give them to Him and trust that He would take care of me. So Wednesday I trusted Him and Wednesday He provided. Then Thursday I forgot it all. I'm an right back where I started, worrying about big things and little things, trying my hardest to make it all work out.

You know, I am a teacher and I should know how people learn. I should know how to make lessons I learn stick in my brain and how to apply them to the rest of my life...that is what I would be helping children do if I was in a classroom! Why can I not get things to stick in my heart and mind?

I was reading in Proverbs yesterday and it might give me insight into this problem.

"How does a man become wise? The first step is to trust and reverence the Lord! Only fools refuse to be taught." Proverbs 1:7 (The Living Bible)

What I'm ultimately desiring is to become wise. Yes, I want peace and joy in the midst of the stress - I want my problems worked out - I want to grow in my trust of the Lord. But behind all of that is wisdom! Wisdom would apply what I have already learned to a new situation I am facing. Wisdom gives it over to the Lord, knowing He is in control and loves me.

So I must trust and reverence the Lord. In other words, I must fear the Lord. I must view Him as the awesome, almighty maker He is and trust Him to be good.

Somehow I don't think I am coming to a conclusion that works here, because I'm really back where I started (with some cheesy Christian words in the middle). I would love to Trust the Lord and give Him those things that stress me out, however I simply don't. What changes from one day to the next that dictates whether or not I am going to trust Christ and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit? Why can I not be consistent at this? I tend to be consistent at eating breakfast, checking my email, going to the bathroom, and blinking my eyes. But trusting Jesus is just not one of my things. And I hate that.

i am floored...

...by what the Lord has done today.

I woke up feeling really low. I have been very anxious about housing and support and life in general and I finally hit a low point this morning. So I made a plan. I set the timer on my watch to go off every hour of the day, and I assigned a certain, specific thing to pray for at each hour.

By the time I walked in the door from work today, 3 of the things had been answered VERY specifically and several more were clearly in the works!

It's funny how as soon as I began taking things to Him and giving them to Him to take care of He began to meet those needs. And I am not a theologian, I don't even really know what I believe as far as the line between God working in my life and me asking Him to. However, what I have learned today is that 1) I become a lot less stressed when I give things over to Him in complete trust, 2) He took care of three of those things that were huge and stressing me out as soon as I gave them to Him to take care of, and 3) even the things that haven't been "taken care of" are suddenly not so stressful - I have peace again.

Praise Jesus with me for teaching me these things and for answering my prayers!!!!!

unbelief

I thought I would share today about something I am not believing.

Psalm 68:19

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
who daily bears our burdens."

and Isaiah 46:4

"Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

I need a housing situation worked out, desperately. I have about a week to find a new place to live. There are three possible places for me to live, however I have one problem with all three of them - support. My support is only at 55%, which means that my paycheck is not sufficient to pay rent. So until my support is raised, I cannot sign a lease. However, I have one week to leave the place I am in.

I am not believing that He is bearing my burdens and sustaining me. I prayed for a long time that I would be able to believe that He is going to take care of this situation, but trust is not coming easily. Will you pray with me for my situation and for my heart?

psalm 87:6

"The Lord will write in the register of the peoples: 'This one was born in Zion'" - ps 87:6

This passage floored me today. I was sitting outside of starbucks, enjoying the warm summer night and the lack of noise around me when I came across this verse. I had just been journaling and praying about sin and about grace.

You see, the Lord has been teaching me amazing things about grace, which I think I may have mentioned on here before. Today I saw my sin all around me. By the time my starbucks time rolled around I was feeling pretty crummy. I had lied to a good friend about something dumb, I had eaten enough for two people at dinner (I can't wait to be pregnant and be able to use that line as justification! Instead I am stuck with the reality of turning to food for comfort, dang it), I had been lazy and not worked on support at all, and I had checked my email more often than I prayed. Plus about a thousand other things.

So I'm feeling really gross and figured the best solution was to spend time with Jesus. Okay, I really thought the best solution was some starbucks, and then once I was there decided to spend time with Jesus. So I was journaling and praying through my sin and my junk with the Lord, and he reminded me of what I have been learning about grace. He reminded me that I am FULLY loved, even in the middle of all my junk. He could not love me more than he does right now, when I can see nothing good in myself. I don't even have to try harder to be a good person or to make up for my sin - I just have to be with him and enjoy his love and forgiveness. Thank you Jesus!

So I'm thinking through all of this and start reading in the Psalms. I read several Psalms, but spend more time thinking about anything and everything else. Then I come across 87:6. I read right over it, but something grabbed my attention in it and I went back and read it again. Then I got really excited as it began to sink in. "The Lord will write in the register of the peoples: 'this one was born in zion'". Nothing else matters any more. My past - long ago and even the junk from today - does not define me. My family does not define me. Instead, it shall be known that I am a child of Zion - a child of the kingdom of God!! My sin is no longer what I am known by, but instead through grace it is written for everyone to know that I am a child of the King.

And wow what an inheritance!

Here is something I shouldn't have done...

I went through and read my old blog (www.xanga.com/ofcourseiamitalian) and my old day planner. Normally not a bad idea, either of these things, but it made my heart a little sad. I read through the days leading up to my departure to Mexico and the days following my arrival. And it made me sad. It made me sad to remember who I was during that time, and it made me sad to remember Mexico.

I have changed in countless ways since September 10, 2005. The person who got on the airplane that day never came home from Mexico, instead I did. I suppose it is safe to say that who I am today is better, healthier, more mature in my faith, however I am still grieving that other girl a little. Perhaps it is the stage of life that I miss. College was fun on so many levels, but my favorite part was doing ministry my senior year. I loved sharing my faith on campus and helping new believers grow in their faith. My confidence was in the Lord and I knew where I fit in to life. In Mexico my faith was shaken as I lived in this new world, with new people. I could no longer rely on coping mechanisms I knew so well, and I had to cling to the Lord in a new way. Total dependence on Him. It is good for me, but difficult to learn. I would even call it painful at times.

I think I was also troubled by the faith that I had then compared to the faith I have now. That summer I appeared to be full of faith. I was confident that the Lord would provide, I was learning things constantly from Him, and my hope was set on things above. What has changed? I still trust, I still learn, and yet things are different.

I am learning a lot lately about myself. One of those things is that I like to run from everything emotional or feelings oriented. I don't like to admit I have feelings, good or bad, or that something has effected me. I put on a happy face and push past it. Perhaps that is what my "faith" was last summer. (As a disclaimer, this is not a well thought out theory, just some rambling.) What if I was really just running from fear that the Lord wouldn't provide, fear that He wasn't real, sadness and discouragement about support? What if my way of escaping those feelings was to convince the world and then myself that I had faith the Lord would provide?

In that case, what am I longing for when I look back at that time in my life? Am I truly desiring the "faith" I had then, or is my heart longing for the freedom to cover up life? Maybe the second is true. During this time that I am realizing I run from emotions, I am also realizing that I have a lot underneath it all. There is a lot of hurt, confusion, pain, anger, and wounds that have never been dealt with. So, perhaps what I long for is the ability to sweep it all under the rug as I did before, and call it faith. That's what the girl who went to Mexico would do. But the girl who came home knows that only leads to death. I want to face it all, but I will do so with the freedom to feel grief over what has been.

i wrote a song!

you can check it out at www.xanga.com/ofcourseiamitalian.

Make My Brain Work!

Last night I went to a new Bible Study. Since I have been home from Mexico I haven't been to a single Bible Study. I don't think you have to be involved in a study to go to heaven, but I do think community is vital for growth and walking with the Lord. And I have missed community deeply!! So, I went to this new church, got a list of their Bible Studies and last night I went.

From the minute I walked in the door I felt at home. They were so warm and welcoming I nearly forgot I was the new person! We had a two hour discussion on Luke 9:18-27 and then sat around just talking for an hour after that! My brain was so pleased that I had finally put it in a situation where it needed to be stretched (the discussion was a bit over my head) and my heart was so full just being around these people. I love being in a place where you know without a doubt that every person around you is walking closely with the Lord. Oh, my heart is just so full.

sad news about harry potter

i have some sad news. i read about an interview that j.k. rawling participated in, during which she shared a bit about book 7 in the series. she said that two characters will die, and she would not deny or affirm if harry was one of them! she alluded to the fact that she didn't want anyone else to be able to write about harry after she died. go on, cry a little if you need to, i understand.

here is a picture from when busta kappa had it's reunion last friday! what fun to be surrounded by such fun, encouraging girls! and, in case you haven't heard yet, miss carrie holmlund is getting married! YAY!!! we are SO excited for the first busta kappa wedding!

Panera Bread

This picture is from our little adventure last Friday :). Use your imagination to figure out what we may have done with our dummy...I'll just give you clues that it involved 7 people, a trailer park, and a large truck...

Well, today I decided to not go to the offices and instead spend the entire day working on ministry partner development (MPD). I quickly became distracted at home and so thought it would be a GREAT idea to go to Panera Bread to work. I got lunch first, then spent some time with the Lord and THEN decided to get to work. As soon as I busted out my stuff a dear friend noticed me and came over to sit with me while she ate. I haven't seen her in probably a year and so treasured the time with her, I just didn't get any work done. So Sonja left and I settled in to work (now 2.5 hours after I arrived). I started up my computer and Anna Sanchez was online so we im'd and decided to set up a barbecue for Bustakappa. That involved planning the details, and then calling all seven other girls in order to invite them. So, an hour later we had made our plans and I once again set my mind to work. Then, very kindly, an employee came to tell me they needed the table for a reservation. So I left, without getting a single thing done, yet I had more peace in my soul than I have had in a long time.

Not only did seeing a friend, planning a party and eating a good lunch bring my spirits up, but my time with the Lord was the sweetest I have had in a long, long time. I start each of my times with Jesus by reading five psalms. (If you read five a day, you get through all 150 each month) Today was 96-100. Some days I breeze through them and go on to other things, but other days, like today, I get stuck and spend an hour there. Psalm 96:1 (yes, I got stuck on the very first verse I read) says something along the lines of "sing a new song to the Lord, all the earth...". The next few verses give reasons to sing a new song to the Lord.

So I read that and started to think about how this applies to my life. What is my old song, if I'm supposed to sing a new song? What is the new song? So I went back and read through my journal and tried to summarize my "song". I realized that all I talk to the Lord about is how He can better my life. "Please change my heart...please change these circumstances...please bring good things to my life..." You get the picture. I wrote out a new song to the Lord, and it goes like this: "Praise you, father, for you are good...thank you for all you have done...thank you for being good and sovereign...let me shout to the world, telling them your glory...". I had never realized how self centered my old song had become. I don't think there is anything wrong with asking the Lord for good things, but how much more is my heart satisfied when I focus on Him instead of my needs?

random thoughts on action words

The last few weeks I have begun Ministry Partner Development full time. As I entered into this process I was full of hope. I couldn't wait to see what the Lord was going to do - and I was fully confident that He would provide! In fact, I was so confident that I asked Him to provide and didn't think about it again. It took me several weeks to even get my first set of letters out to potential ministry partners. Now I am starting to see the reality of having no support - i.e. I did not receive my last paycheck because I didn't have enough money in my account. Now, the Lord did provide for every need I had, in incredible ways! But my eyes were opened, once again, to the disease of my heart.

I went so quickly from trusting the Lord to using the Lord. My mindset slipped into not even praying about my support, because He would provide. Today I was driving home from the offices, thinking about all of this, and it hit me. Trusting and waiting are actions. Trusting the Lord does not mean ignoring a problem because He will take care of it. It means spending hours before His throne, allowing Him to transform me, pleading with Him to accomplish what He has promised. Waiting on the Lord does not mean sitting quietly until something happens. Waiting on the Lord means humbling my heart, crying out to Him and allowing Him to make me more like Him in the process.

Psalm 27 cleared a lot of this up for me.

13I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. 14Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD

I want my heart to be strong and courageous! And to me, a courageous heart stands boldly before the Lord, allowing Him to make me new and more like Himself! I want to wait well, I want to trust well.