Sometimes, when you're not listening, God will shout so you can hear.

I'm thankful that God doesn't shy away from telling me the truth about myself, no matter how hard it is for me to hear. It may be easier for me to close my ears and forget what He has shown me, but then I would just be lying to myself. I think it must be easy for us to believe our own lies. To think for a minute that I'm not as bad as that. But I want to know the truth and see as clearly as I can. Being in the dark spiritually is far too frightening. I'm thankful to God for bringing the truth into my life in the ways that He does, specifically for the people that bless my heart with their honesty and kindness. So if you're not listening to God, be ready to hear a few shouts in your direction to catch your attention and bring you back to a place where you can listen.

My life has become something I don't really recognize anymore, but in a good way.

My life as a GA (graduate assistant) at Baylor is very exciting, rewarding, and challanging. I am involved in so many activities it's kinda nuts. For instance tomorrow, I'm going to get up early and do a kickboxing class at the SLC (if I don't oversleep), I will teach a Musikgarten class, go to Pedagogy and turn in my teaching philosophy (I should post that on my blog someday), co-teach our 1125 group piano class, skip piano ensemble because Holly and I aren't ready for a lesson yet, teach private lessons, and go to the Student Organization Summit (which is kind of a waste of time because our organization doesn't really get into most of those issues anyway). And in between I have to practice as much as possible, because every minute is important and can not be wasted. So in this way, I don't really recognize my life anymore, because I used to have time to think through every little thing, and now I just have to do everything without thinking too hard about it. And I used to have time to kind of sit and be still, and now I can do that but only while I'm eating or writing an email, or sleeping. Everyone goes through this I think. So it's good I'm not alone. The encouraging thing is that I like everything that I do a whole lot. I am grateful to be doing all these things and I can only imagine all that I will learn in the process.

His love surprises me.

My friend Jenny just got engaged! I'm so excited for her. Holly has been engaged for seven months, and that's just as awesome. Kristen is pert'near, well she's very serious about Jose anyway, and Sharon we like to say will be married in one with babies in two (that's cutting it close, but you never know with Sharon). A small part of me is sad. It's hard, really hard, not to realize that you're alone when your closest friends are so in love and so happy with their fiances/boyfriends. I do not resent any of them at all, in fact I really couldn't be happier for each of them. But it's true part of me would just like to cry. Once they are married, it will never be the same. Actually, things are already changing. Suddenly you realize that now, you can't be as important to them. I kind of feel like the odd one out, being single. Yet I know all through my heart and soul that God has an incredible, magnificent, beyond imagination, spectacular plan for me. There may be some naysayers out there, who think I'm a hopeless case, doomed to be an old maid with no family of my own. Let me just tell you all now, shove it. You of little faith, God has worked many much more challanging miracles. Not a flower or bird is out of His care, much more will He look after me! I can't say what His plan is, or why I'm here now. Only that when I abide in His love, I can not be sad or alone. He fills me up, and overflows. He leads me by hand, through every hard spot, bringing me through much stronger, much more joyful and surprised in His faithfulness. I pray that my heart finds love renewed everyday. I pray that all of my friends find in their hearts the same. Love given by God in His far-reaching, lovely faithfulness.

Making a Journey

I was reading Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest" today, but I read July 28. He was talking about how our journey, every day, every step, is where God is glorified, not necessarily the goal or outcome of our efforts. He says, "God is not working toward a particular finish-His purpose is the process itself... It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorfifying to God. God's training is for now, not later." It just reminded me how life is a journey, I know it's cliche. But each day I have to make choices, and by God's grace I can make good ones that give me hope and a future. It's all in the details. Each day is an opportunity for new discoveries. Am I open to them? I had a teacher tell me once that the opportunity to learn is presented with every breath. I hope that as I walk through my daily routine, I find out new things about God and myself and this little sphere I live on.

Good Morning!

I am working very early in the morning. It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't closed last night at midnight. And you can't just fall asleep after work, so it was past 1:00 am before I fell asleep.

I can't believe how much I have on my mind right now.
~wanting to exercise more
~trying to follow a really tight budget (it stinks being a grown up)
~working and teaching
~practice, practice, practice
~studying for graduate entrance exams, I've barely started, grrr
~weddings for everyone

a lot of trying, some doing. I've been on a sort-of vacation. I went home for a week and got absolutely nothing accomplished. And now I know it's time to get back into the swing of things. But first, a nap. No! Resist! Procrastination does not pay off in the end! Just do it! (Nike?)

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. . . . A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. “Self Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson