God is good.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Trust

Funny how we make decisions based on the trust we have in the Lord, then immediately doubt. I long to be able to constantly trust God's hand in my life. To dispel the seeds of doubt the enemy so aptly plants in my mind. "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

Gain or Loss?

I was reading my Streams in the Desert devotional the other day when I read something about Paul's vision for his life that made me stop in my tracks and pull an immediate re-read. He was speaking about gain and loss. "To live is Christ, to die is gain." The author poses the question: "Why is it that most of what Paul considers gain, we consider loss?" And it is true. We pray that God would save us from health issues, from stress, from heartache, from conflict, from negative insert-word-into-blank-here. We don't want to be troubled (and I think that this is natural). But these are the very things that bring Paul joy: he considers them "gain." How do we change our way of thinking to match Paul's? I have no idea. But I do know that the past 2 months, my relationship with God is better than ever. Not because my life is easy and that I have a-z going on for me. But because I am relying on Him more each day. I am on my knees in my classroom begging Him to move. I am looking around me and realizing that, even in the dark times, I am so blessed beyond belief.
My charge for anyone that reads this is to reflect. What in your life right now are you counting as loss that is really bringing you closer to God? Do you trust Him to be enough?

Community

The past almost 5 weeks have taught me a lot about myself. But, more so, I feel like I have learned about the necessity of community. I am still visiting churches and have not quite found my niche yet. Every Sunday I feel like I am playing church roulette. I have not yet visited the place where I really feel at home. What's rough about that is that, without a church home, I have no social interaction with anyone but my co-workers (who are great btw). I am ready to find a group of people to bond with. It's so strange; I never thought I would miss HPU like I do. And really, it's not that I miss the college life. I just miss the people. I miss going to T and C at 2 am to get Pepto Bismal for my roommate. I miss the house flooding and having to evacuate. I miss lunch dates. I am in dire need of community.
Not to say that my life sucks or anything. I am extremely blessed. I have a great job, pay day is Friday, a loving family, a safe and cozy apartment, and wonderful friends who, even though we are hours apart, still keep in touch. So, even though I have yet to find community, I am trusting the Lord and that He is enough.

Reflections after 2 weeks of "real world"

Tomorrow I will start my 3rd week of teaching. This weekend I have had a rollercoaster of emotions about the whole thing. I honestly have not been this down in a long time. It's not just about the teaching, but I think the combination of everything really got to me. I am living alone, I don't have a church home, my friends are scattered all over the US, and teaching is so much more difficult than I thought. It is an extreme test of my faith. I feel like I am learning a huge lesson of humility. I am just praying that I can rely on God's strength...and not feel like a failure. Not let Satan get me down. I know that, for the time being, I am where God has called me to be. I can't forget that.

work

I don't think I will have my head on straight again until June.
I worked until 8:30 tonight up at the school. Will probably stay later tomorrow. It will NEVER get finished.
If you read this, please pray for sanity and a little organization for my brain. And some grace from my students.
Monday=D-Day!!!

great insight on poetry and observation

I read this and thought it was great; not just applying to poetry but to the way we view life.

Toward An Impure Poetry by Pablo Neruda

"It is good, at certain hours of the day and night, to look closely at the world of objects at rest. Wheels that have crossed long, dusty distances with their mineral and vegetable burdens, sacks from the coal bins, barrels, and baskets, handles and hafts for the carpenter's tool chest. From them flow the contacts of man with the earth, like a text for all troubled lyricists. The used surfaces of things, the wear that the hands give to things, the air, tragic at times, pathetic at others, of such things--all lend a curious attractiveness to the reality of the world that should not be underprized.
In them one sees the confused impurity of the human condition, the massing of things, the use and disuse of substances, footprints and fingerprints, the abiding presence of the human engulfing all artifacts, inside and out.
Let that be the poetry we search for: worn with the hand's obligations, as by acids, steeped in sweat and in smoke, smelling of lilies and urine, spattered diversely by the trades that we live by, inside the law or beyond it.
A poetry impure as the clothing we wear, or our bodies, soup-stained, soiled with our shameful behavior, our wrinkles and vigils and dreams, observations and prophecies, declarations of loathing and love, idylls and beasts, the shocks of encounter, political loyalties, denials and doubts, affirmations and taxes.
The holy canons of madrigal, the mandates of touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing, the passion for justice, sexual desire, teh sea sounding--willfully rejecting and accepting nothing: a consummate poetry soiled by the pigeon's claw, ice-marked and tooth-marked, bitten delicately with our sweatdrops and usage, perhaps. Till the instrument so restlessly played yields us the comfort of its surfaces, an the woods show the knottiest suavities shaped by the pride of the tool. Blossom and water and wheat kernel share one precious consistency: the sumptuous appeal of the tactile.
Let no one forget them. Melancholy, old mawkishness impure and unflawed, fruits of a fabulous species lost to the memory, cast away in a frenzy's abandonment--moonlight, the swan in the gathering darkness, all hackneyed endearments: surely that is the poet's concern, essential and absolute.
Those who shun the "bad taste" of things will fall flat on the ice."