It's Time

It's been a couple months and I'm due for a life update. After months of waking up early and staying up late searching through job after job after job; forcing out one long pointless application after another and rewriting cover letter after cover letter..... I can honestly say all my hard work was absolutely pointless. I was trusting God to direct my resume to the right person when I should have been trusting God to direct me to the right job. One day my dearest friend Lauren emailed me a link to an organization who was hiring for a Director position. I was so excited because this was actually an organization that I was interested in (rare) and I had plenty of experience working in the capacity the job called for. Anyone who knows me well knows that I grew up a YMCA girl. I was at camp for after school, summer camp, spring break camp, holiday camp all of it. And once I was old enough to work and become a youth counselor I did. This particular position was perfect. I read the job description and just drooled. This job was meant for me and I claimed it. I applied only to receive a kick back email that basically said: Don't contact us to follow up with your application -we'll contact you IE. talk to you in 6 months if at all. One week after I applied I received a call from the HR department asking me general application questions. They said they'd contact me in two to three weeks. Less than one week later HR called to set up an interview. I was so excited words can't really express my level of anticipation. Meanwhile I was interviewing for several other positions with the organisation I worked with while serving in AmeriCorps however, my heart was invested in this particular job. Like I said... It was perfect. So I interviewed not just two times, not just three times for 4 TIMES!! Each time hearing back from HR to set up an additional interview much sooner that apparently they nor I expected:  Only God.

All that sums up to say: I got the job. Not because I was searching long and hard, not because my cover letter was convincing or because I'm so awesome in interviews. God brought the job to me and prepared the hearts of everyone I spoke to. I am blessed and highly favored to the tenth degree. I've been working for a little over a month now and have faced challenge and triumph. But in all things and at all times I give God the glory. I didn't maneuver my way here. I was delivered here in a vehicle beyond my own comprehension.

It's almost thanksgiving time and I have much to be thankful for. I have a job, I have a church home, I have friends in the faith, a family that loves and supports me and most importantly I have dumped my old relationship with the created and am pursuing a relationship with the Creator: my heavenly father. Now that I'm baptized I know the Holy Spirit more intimately. He both comforts and convicts me for this I am eternally thankful and grateful. All in all, I am moving onward though not without bumps and bruises. Now that I've given this background, I look forward to revealing more and more truths about my life and the adventure that extends from it.

Evaporating Thoughts

Only once in a lifetime do we meet people like you...
The one who overflows all your levies, barriers and walls
Makes you question love, society, gravity, yourself
The kind of people you loose yourself in willingly
Drowning in the waves of their beauty, their light

Those are the ones who you'll never get that piece of your heart back from
And you can't even go after it
Because the love they gave you even for that brief moment was worth that chunk of yourself
So you watch them disappear with you forever - a peaceful surrender

I think back on all the moments from before wondering...
If we really did have a chance? If doom was really what was lurking behind the brick wall
If that light we saw glowing behind it..
Was really the flash of us blowing up in each other's faces

I remember staring out of windows with both eyes closed listening to you
I remember running to the phone, holding your hand, praying for another chance....
Instead the tide of life washed away all the hope but left the memories behind
Building shrines on the foundation of our broken future

I'll always love that one and the watermark they left behind
A painful reminder of the beautiful renovation they did to my heart
You're still the perfect line to what I wish was my life's poem
The last wave to sweep away my heart

Exactly how big is a mustard seed anyway??

Yeah I did it. I Googled the word mustard seed because I've been struggling the last couple of days and I had to know. And if you have never seen one before... Yes, believe what they say... A mustard seed is tiny. So tiny that if someone threw one at me... I probably wouldn't notice -or care. Now that I've seen it I can't help but wonder... This is REALLY all the faith I need? In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says,  "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible". 

So according to the Nepali government, Mt. Everest is 29,029 feet. National Geographic says that it's 6 feet taller at 29,035 feet. I read this and in my undying quest for knowledge said, who cares its huge. But before clicking back over to my Facebook tab I read that "shifting tectonic plates continue to push Everest upward, along with the whole Himalya mountain range, at 1.6 to 3.9 inches per year". Ha! God you still sure a mustard seed is gonna do it? Just like Mt. Everest, my problems and issues are BIG and only getting BIGGER! And even the biggest mustard tree can't stand taller than a 29,000 foot (and and rising) mountain. 

The unemployment rate is rising along with the divorce rate, depression rate and suicide rate higher and higher each year. I can testify that, the older I get the more grown my problems seem to get and some of us need an answer now. Most of us need a job NOW. A cure NOW. A bill paid NOW. A change NOW. Peace NOW. 11:59 PM is the scariest part of the day because to us that is the last chance. That's when the bill hits the account, when the rent is overdue, when the house goes into foreclosure, when the plug is pulled from all hope and faith. But I have learned that God doesn't move because the notice says today in red or because we wont know what we'll do if he doesn't. God moves when it's time. His time. Sometimes it just works out that my clock and God's time sync up but not always.

I grew up listening to songs like On Time God. The song's chorus says, 

He may not come when you want him.

But he'll be there right on time.

 He's an on time God. -Yes he is"  

 It's true you know. God moves at the perfect time. He has got the perfect plan and has the perfect timing for everything. His plan is not our plan and our deadline wont make him rush. Let's be clear, God is all powerful, all knowing, all glorious. Honestly, we don't even deserve to speak his name. What makes us think that God dances to the tick of man's watch? What makes us think that we've seen and heard all that he can do? Faith in God means DON'T FREAK OUT. Allow him to handle everything, understand that he loves us and the time and capacity in which he moves may not be what we expect or when we expect it. 1st Peter 5: 6-7 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you”.

John 2 tells a story about a wedding at Cana. There Jesus turned water into wine but it's important to hear the dialogue. Jesus' mother tells Jesus about the wine shortage and he says, "That's not our problem", he goes on to say, "My time has not yet come". 7 times in the book of John Jesus says this "My time has not yet come". Often in our impatience we ask God, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??? But did we ever consider that just like how Jesus wasn't waiting on the money to buy more wine but for the water that God may have a different way in which he'd like to bless you? Would you have landed the better job if you were still working for the old one? Would we have cherished our loved ones this much if we knew they would never would leave us? Would we grow in faith if everything worked according to our plan? Be encouraged! It doesn't make sense, we don't get it, we may not like the wait, but God has promised us peace (John 14:27) and will never leave us (Deuteronomy 31:8). A mustard seed is about as small as the window we have into God's master plan. But that is okay. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer (Romans 12:12). In a world where even the biggest mustard tree doesn't seem big enough, nothing is impossible for God (Luke 1: 37).

Tapping Heavenly Windows

Another chapter in my life is drawing to a close and I am waiting to turn this final page... My years of AmeriCorps servitude are numbered (10 to be exact) and just like my stipend it's all bitter sweet. Two years of living in poverty for my country and now I sit at God's feet trembling with excitement. I've never seen a heavenly window this big before and I've never made this much room for God's blessings before. I've got my Bible posted next to my bed, my devotion app downloaded on my phone, my church is praying for me too. Lord, my ark is parallel parked in the front God you say the word! Open the flood gates of heaven, LET IT RAIN!

........

Instead my phone rings and it's a friend in need of support. Instead it's my gas light flashing, it's my email filling up with last minute paper work not requests for interviews and I'm left tapping on this heavenly window that appears to be locked? Can you crack the window God? Just slide me a lil' something under the crack of the door... Helloooo? Lord please refresh your screen because another chapter in my life is drawing to a close and I'm still stuck on this same page writing a conclusion.... *Sigh* New paragraph.

So my friend is going through her own personal book of Job right now (not job.... JOB) and her faith is isn't shining as much as its glowing. We sit together on her journey talking about what it means to trust God, talking about what the ex did. No let's talk about what Jesus did. But look at what I had before. But look at what you're promised now. I'm telling her to eat pray and love but and she's starving crying and pissed. It's a process, I know that and I'll be there... Even though a large part of me wants to be on my Ark....

To be continued..

Happy

Happy is a funny word...
Seriously think about it... HAPPY
I guess it exists somewhere between Joy and Goofy?

The first two letters make me want to laugh
the last three make me wanna laugh till I gotta... You know
It's just a silly sounding word that's all and all it's rhymes sound silly too

For such a funny word we use it everyday even on the bad ones....
I just want you to be happy, happy to be home, happily married
What does that mean?

Is it fun? Is it bliss? Is it contentment? Is it the same as Joy?
Is happy what Jesus meant by life more abundantly?
Or is it stern like... Life and the pursuit of happiness

I think if happiness were a food... It would be whipped cream
The sweet kind... Not the nasty stuff that's supposed to "calm down the sweetness"
You know, the kind you spray into your mouth like a greedy sticky fingered big kid

I digress...

Is it comfortable like the perfect corner in a sofa? Or awkward like a tickle to the neck?
Maybe it's both and the giggles that we hear are expressions of our inner child
Who know nothing besides happy and not

Is happy a place? Or a status?
And once you get there? How do you stay?
Action or reaction? Is it a chemical imbalance? Are some more prone to it than others?

Happy is such a funny word... We can feel hundreds of sad things and still hold on to it
Whether we loose so much or gain so much we search for it constantly
In others, in our minds, in drugs, our situations, in God

I think some confuse happiness with freedom thinking let me just be and I'll have it
But could happiness only exist when there is freedom? And then the search begins?
Do we choose it with our hearts with our minds with our being or does it choose us when we're ready?

It means so much to so many but sounds so darn silly
and maybe that's the point?
Maybe happy is everything wonderful wrapped in silly paper

I'll take two... sigh*
HAPPY
... What a funny word

That's My Love for You

I can't sum up my love for you in a paragraph or poem or song

I can't recreate the picture in my mind of us being together again

The chills up my spine I get everytime I relive our embrace are just words on a page

and no matter how much I highlight, bold or italisize.... The result is the same and falls short of what you deserve


So I crumble up paper after paper littering the floor with my failed attempts at telling how I feel

Scribbiling out words too weak, too shallow, too arbitrary to describe your wonderful

Scraping the deepest crevises of my heart searching for a kind of perfection that I can offer to you...

Nothing is enough... I just love you.

I love you like my lungs love to breathe, like my heart loves to beat like my eyes love to see

I love you like its all I know how to do

I love you like a bird loves her nest, like a fish loves the sea like the stars love the night

I love you like you're home

Like the hands on God's watch, like the beauty of the angels like the universe rolls into heaven above

I love you like i'll never stop

I just love you with my whole heart and its as simple as that.... As pure I know how to express... As much as God has allowed me to give to another

That's my love for you

My gift

It's a precious gift wrapped in all your favorite colors... But it’s not yours to open
So you pick it up, you shake it and imagine what incredible secrets lay deep inside
Day dreaming of the endless possibilities if it was your name on the card, wishing, praying
Wondering why you couldn't have been sent such a beautiful gift
Why you don't deserve wonders and sweet happiness for yourself

It's the perfect line that just doesn't fit in your life's poem
The exhale releasing all your tension and anxiety
It's the warmth you always wanted but you're scorching already
The cool breeze you prayed to God for but it’s freezing right now
It's a precious gift wrapped in everything you've ever wanted... But you turn and walk away because
It's already hidden deep inside your pocket :)