Living Each Day

So I am out of the slump from last week, or on the way out. I have had a few thoughts in the mean time about it and just wanted to bring a happier outlook on life from my perspective.

I am in a tough spot right now-knowing where I am going to be and not yet being there. It's too far away to really start living on the high of moving, but too soon to still be focusing on life right now. This is really tough for me and I have decided that I am really bad at living in the present. I am always thinking forward, trying to find things to change to make my life better, and not being content with what is now and today. I live my life too far into the future and place too many expectations on it rather than simply living. I sometimes convince myself that I am being strategic this way, but it's not helping to have this "strategy" because I am usually disappointed.

So, I just need to live today as today or this week as this week. I need to enjoy the rain outside right now and appreciate this not so often day off. I need to be satisfied with the fact that I am still not dressed nor have I really accomplished anything today, but instead think that I am resting for the busy end of the week. This is not easy for me, but I hope that I can get better at it.

Nothing too deep, just simply wanting to reflect on this in order to start changing how I perceive my days.

Discontentment

So, Sam and I are officially moving to North Carolina to attend graduate school. I have been offered the position as a resident director of a building, which allows for many financial blessings as well as some great professional experience. Sam does not currently have funding, but we will be able to work on that as the years progress. This is great news and an answer to prayer for us this past year. However, I am experiencing a really tough week right now and can't figure out why...

I should be jumping for joy everyday I feel because we have such great plans not too far off, right? I should be enjoying my last two months in Holland with friends, family, and our church because they have been so amazing to have in our lives. I should be thankful for so much. And yet, I am struggling to carry a positive attitude recently. I am EXTREMELY thankful for everything that I have and please do not think that I am throwing myself a pity party. But, that is why I am so confused with my discontentment. I feel as if I should be much more happy right now but that is not showing.

I am always tired, complaining about my work and my current lifestyle more often than I should, and thinking about myself way too much at times. I don't know if this is simply me needing to get over myself, or am I just wanting the future to come now? I am really looking forward to moving, but have some hesitations and fears as well-mostly leaving family and friends and having to recreate that in a brand new place. I am not enjoying my crazy, busy, inconsistent schedule, but know that is going to remain while in graduate school. Sometimes I just want to shake myself and yell at myself to snap out of it.

I am not a naturally positive person. In fact, I am much more critical than anything else and mostly of myself. So, I could be too hard on myself (that's not new!). Or, am I really struggling with something deeper here and being discontent? I have so many blessings in life here and now, why am I not celebrating these?

I don't have any answers, but simply needed to put my emotional mess into words to try to sort out these feelings. Please don't judge me for my Debbie Downer attitude, and instead maybe simply pray for a changed heart in me. I want to be that light that shines because God is at work in my life and no matter what, he is sovereign over all. I want that to be the message to those around me, not my discontentment and selfish attitude. So, thanks for listening/reading and helping me on this lifelong journey to be more joyful and thankful than critical. I hope to soon post something that is dramatically different than this and hope that you will continue to read my journey for becoming a better disciple :)

Reflection on The Wilderness

So I just returned from my Bible study and was very encouraged and uplifted while there. This has been a frequent feeling this year as well as a feeling that I have longed to have at many times. I am not one to write often, but my heart is overflowing right now that I cannot help but write down my thoughts and that is why I have succumbed to creating a blog. We will see how this goes as life can be very busy and not offer a lot of time for reflection, but I hope to blog often. Often is a relative term and I don't know how often often will be, but I would like to at least challenge myself to take the time to reflect in life more often than I do now.

This morning at Bible study, we were reading about The Wilderness that the Israelites were in for forty years and what that was physically like. It was not the green grass and pine needle blanket ground with large trees surrounding us that we in the West think of, but instead it was a dessert. A dry, hot, rocky land that did not offer much other than suffering. However, God often uses the Wilderness to teach and strengthen His people.

We are using our pastor's book In a Word and he had this book published based on his experiences of leading groups through the wilderness of the Holy Land. He says, "without fail, the travel groups I lead always find their souls being stirred by the wilderness". Well, this year has certainly been a wilderness for Sam and me. We graduated from college in May '09 and got married four weeks later. The day that we graduated, we did not have jobs, a place to live, or any indication of where that might be. However, God has led us through this wilderness and been faithful all the way through. It has been a struggle, but as Pastor George DeJong writes in his book, "And yet, mixed in with the hardships and temptations of the wilderness, there has always been grace. God fed his people there and spoke to them there. He prepared them for life and ministry there. With every step along the difficult wilderness paths, God revealed his great heart of Love."

God is doing great things within me and it has not been easy. I am working two jobs about 60 hours a week that I am way overqualified for. I was living pay check to pay check until recently. I am bored even amongst my crazy schedule. And this is not the life that I have been told my entire life that I would have.

However, God has given me grace and loved me. His love for me is more than I can ever know and because of that, I have continued to be faithful to him. He has blessed me at this point in my life: I have a great marriage, a church that I do not want to leave, a fully furnished and decorated apartment, a working car, two jobs, a full refrigerator, no anxiety about paying the bills, great health, wonderful family and friends...the list could go on even more. His faithfulness amazes me and that has what has kept me on this journey with a mostly positive attitude.

I am not trying to say that life is easy for me, but it is a lot easier than it could be. I hope to one day look back on my time in the wilderness and smile at who God had changed me to become and to laugh at the situation not with a mocking laugh, but with a mature laugh that allows for me to appreciate where God has brought me from.

I anticipate many more wildernesses in my lifetime and as George says, "We may long for a pampered and easy life, but the truth is, God's people have always been wilderness people". I hope that I can hold onto that faithfulness and endure anything that comes about in my wilderness. And if I cannot, I have an amazing community of faith to stand beside me through it and encourage me to keep running the race that God has set for me to run.