My Life on a Schedule

With the help of one of my favorite teacher's and honorary family members, I now live on a very precise schedule. And from 10:00-11:00 is study time. I however neglected to bring home my history, so I have nothing to study right now. However, I thought in sticking to the spirit of my schedule, I'd do something productive. Hence, my blog post.

Last week was an insane week. We had See You at the Pole, Saw You at the Pole, and youth Sunday all in the same week. Musical planning overload would be an understatement. Not to mention the fact that I only started living on a schedule in the latter part of last week. So, my stress was almost at aneurism levels.

Now however, I'm calm. I really don't have anything I'm too deeply worried about. And it feels great. I hope moments like this will continue to pop up in my life. Maybe I am starting to get the hang of all this after all.

"Be strong. therefore, and let not your hands be weak and slack, for your work shall be rewarded."
2 Chronicles 15:7

It's 1:18 AM

As evidenced by the title, it's 1:18 in the morning. I'm getting up at five thirty. Sleep escapes me at the moment, because my mind is moving at the speed of light, while my body is struggling to keep up. I haven't blogged in a while, I've told myself multiple times over the last few weeks that I'd actually sit down and do it, but it just hasn't come to me. But now, in the wee hours of the morning of today, I felt the inspiration to sit, well lay, and share myself with you all once again.

One of the things I do when I'm feeling an overwhelming amount of emotion is write. Not things like blog posts really, more like songs, poems, call them whatever you will. I wrote one of these last year when I was having a close-to-complete meltdown over the fact that my best friend was going away to college this year. Looking back over it today, I find new meaning in the words, and I find myself applying this fear that I had, to the present, but now I'm part of what I'm afraid of. Not only will my friends be leaving, but so will I.

I'm not going to post what I wrote, just because of its personal nature, and this is the internet, after all. So if any of you who actually know me want to read it, just ask me sometime.

There is something I realized... Yes we are all going to be moving away next year, moving on to bigger and better things in life. Just because we will all be in different places doesn't mean that we'll lose the love we have for each other and the friendships we have developed over all these years. Everybody always worries about what the future holds, but I know that with God's grace, we will grow up, and grow old, always as friends. Forever.

"Because friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them."
-Michael W. Smith

When the World Resembles an Electrical Storm

Last night my hometown, Batesville, had a huge thunderstorm. But the thing was, there wasn't really much rain, at least at first. My friends and I were actually sitting out on the my friend Georgia's deck during her mom's surprise 50th birthday party--which went splendidly--and suddenly clouds started moving in.

When we were first banished to the outside, the atmosphere was muggy, humid, hot, and sunny. We finally started getting used to the climate of the outdoors and got to conversation when suddenly these clouds, in about a span of ten minutes, blocked out the sun and brought on a very severe lightning storm.

One thing a few of my friends did was go dancing in the middle of a field. Well, I thought this was kind of stupid to be perfectly honest. I love them to death, but I didn't see the fun in being possibly struck down by lightning. Call me crazy. Eventually Carol (Georgia's Aunt) called them in when she realized they were dancing in the middle of a field, in a thunderstorm. Yay for responsible adults!

This whole scenario struck me this morning and I realized it can all be one giant metaphor. Life sometimes banishes us into situations we don't really want to be involved in, and things are rough. We struggle to make it through each day, but slowly we adjust to our new surroundings and scenarios. Then suddenly, everything shifts, and we can become caught in the middle of a spiraling twister of change, fear, anger, and pain. Adjusting to all of that can be hard enough as it is, but some of us don't even realize when we've started on the downward spiral until someone pulls us out of it. Only then do we realize what a dangerous minefield we were running in all along, and can only be grateful to those who pull us out.

Never forget that.

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. (NIV)
-Proverbs 46:1-3

Poultry.

This post is not about a bird, or birds, or turkey.

This morning in Sunday School my teacher was talking about... to be honest I really don't remember the context of this word vomit, but I remember he was trying to say poetry, and the word came out poultry. I didn't sleep much last night, and given my state of mind at nine thirty in the morning, I cracked up.

I dismissed the incident as a flub up in speech, something that happens to me a lot. But tonight, as one of my friends on Facebook reminded me of this morning. I realized a few things about this episode.

1) I have one of the coolest Sunday school teachers in the world, who puts up with a bunch of high school guys every Sunday morning, not to mention bringing us homemade cookies and milk (the milk isn't homemade you word Nazis)

2) Even those people we look up to make mistakes, sure this was a small mistake, but the principle applies to bigger mistakes. We are all human, born into sin, and once we forget that, we lose sight of reality and begin to lose sight of the big picture.

3) We are so quick to point out others' flaws. It's actually really disgusting. And part of the reason I'm disgusted is that I am just as guilty as everyone else. We are so quick to point out something someone else does, that we fail to see our own wrongdoings. No, it's not a sin to change poetry to poultry. In this case it was very funny. But the point is that we all screw up. All of us. Us, including me.

Never forget that.

³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
-Matthew 7:3-5

When It's hard to see the light.

I find myself thinking about the future and wondering about it's path more and more everyday. I see people I've grown up with, people I love, moving on in life. They're finding God's plan. They're walking in the light and moving on in a new chapter of their lives.

I feel stuck. I feel as though I'm in the last few pages of this chapter of my life, struggling to turn into the new volume. I still lack basic study skills, almost never finish work in the time I need to. I freak out when I think something's wrong, most of the time something isn't. I know God has a plan for me, and I've been privileged in the past few years to catch glimpses of the big picture He has me painted into.

There are junctures in all of our lives where it's hard to see how what we're going through could possibly mean anything in a bigger picture. How the pain and heartbreak we endure could possibly be for our good. It's at times like these we must turn to God. Pray for Him to give us the strength to make it through to tomorrow.

There's no quick fix for a bad habit of procrastination and worry, or easy ways to forget the sorrow and pain of change. But we can always move forward with the assurance that no matter what. No matter what. Our future is bright. We just have to calm down enough to let God turn on the light.

Never forget that.

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

-Jeremiah 29:11