Farewell to 2010-2011 School Year

Well friends....The summer weather is upon us! Finally! :) Soon it will be summer. I am so excited for days of relaxation with family. This school year has been an awesome blessing though. I have had an amazing class with supportive parents. I honestly am very sad about letting these kids go. They will be off to the middle school and I won't be seeing many of them again. Kind of a sad thought. One little boy came up to me and said, "Mrs. Lockwood, I just don't think I want to grow up." It was the sweetest thing. I encouraged him that he will do GREAT at the middle school. I am so thankful for the opportunity to build into these children's lives. So, although I will miss them, I know they will do great things in the future. I used my Creative Memories Storybook Creator software and designed a whole book for my kids. I had them printed in flipbook form for each of them. I printed a larger version too so I will read it to them and then pass out their copies. I can't wait! It was a pretty big project but I whipped it out in a weekend! :) Initially I wrote a story to use with the pictures then decided I wanted it to be a poem. I am so proud of the final product...Now I just have to practice reading and singing it without crying! (The song at the end is the Confidence song we sing before each test! :)



(The cover of the book.)

The stage was all set with the things they would need
as the children entered the space.
Their eyes wide with wonder, their hearts still unsure
not knowing what just might take place.

The director called out to each young, eager child
as she sought to know them by name.
She studied their strengths, their likes and dislikes,
knowing each child is not the same.

Yes, each child would play an important role
in their year-long preparation you see.
Day in and day out the children all learned
to be the best they could be.

They focused on academics, the things yet to learn,
their attitudes, positive and hopeful,
They focused on actions, the way they should live
for they each should be a role model.

Through days dark and draining to days full of fun
the children matured and they grew.
The year progressed on and the actors worked hard
to master the skills old and new.

Long winter soon turned into days warm and grand
as the major state tests drew now close.
The children grew nervous thinking this was the performance,
the one they’d been practicing for most.

With a smile and wave she assured they’d be great,
yet worries around their hearts swarmed.
As the testing concluded the children all asked
if they’d shown her how great they’d performed.

She winked and said, “Why, what do you mean?
The final performance is still months away.”
Confused and alarmed they questioned her still
not knowing what else to say.

Still time passed on by and these children worked hard
to practice their three focus goals.
And on a day late in June the director told them
it was time for her to hand over controls.

One young boy called out, “We practiced so hard
but the performance just hasn’t come yet.”
Smiling she called them to meet at center-stage.
They noticed her cheek was all wet.

“My children the show just isn’t over yet,
for all the performance has been all year long.
The fans young and old have watched you each day
and have seen your passionate song.

Now the first scene is over yet there are countless to go,
for you will decide the show’s end.
During this time I have taught you the skills
to succeed in your life scenes my young friend.

You know how the importance of academic study,
the hopefulness of a positive attitude,
You know the respectability of your actions,
of this I confidently conclude.

I now am releasing you now to spread your wings
and soar into your own scene two.
I will miss you each day but your future’s so bright,
I can’t wait to hear what you do!

A quivering voice called, “I’m excited yet scared,
the future is so dark and so new.”
With a gentle singing voice and a smile on her face
the director gave the actors a cue.

I have confidence in sunshine. I have confidence in rain,
I have confidence that spring will come again,
besides which you see
I have confidence in me.

In no time at all the children all joined,
in confidence for now they could see.
Their voices raised high, they swayed and they danced
all applauding and cheering with glee.

As the curtain was closed on their elementary scene,
they embarked with hope and true joy,
For their elementary teachers had prepared them to leave
no longer a little girl or boy.

Direction

A man's heart plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 16:19

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thy own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps. Proverbs 3:5-6

I am so thankful for God's leading in our lives. Despite the time spent in prayer and seeking advice on my strength, His answers and direction always prevail. So much of me loves where we are in our lives. We are so blessed. Part of me longs to be making a bigger difference in this world. Until He opens those doors for ministry we will wait and do our best to serve Him where we are!

A Captive Mind

God is God and I am not,
I can only see a part
of the picture He's painting
God is God and I am man
I can never understand it all
for ONLY GOD is GOD

Once again I struggle with worry. I play a million scenarios out in my head and fret about different situations in each one. Let me tell you, I have a great imagination....unfortunate at times. So, my mind has run wild the last few days. When that happens, my first sign is a distracted mind and an upset stomach. I swear my stomach and my brain are best friends and worst enemies. I worry about my health, my future, I even worry about future trials God might bring into my life and worry how I will prepare myself for them. Why can't I just focus on knowing my God and trusting Him? I get so frustrated. I read every book about this and I know it in my head, yet putting it into practice I feel like I fail every time!!! I read one of my favorite verses again yesterday and have been REALLY REALLY trying to put it into practice...
Be ANXIOUS for NOTHING. But, in everything by PRAYER and SUPPLICATION with THANKSGIVING, let your requests be made known unto God. And the PEACE of God which transcends ALL UNDERSTANDING will guard your hearts and your minds in CHRIST JESUS.

1, STOP worrying.
2. PRAY about each request instead.
3. THANK Him for his provision, guidance, and character.
4. RECEIVE peace.

If only I were good at the first three steps....I really want that fourth one.

Pray with me that I will learn to embrace those principles rather than let my mind wonder....

Prone to wander Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.

I wander from God when I let my mind wander. Please God, take my mind captive. I'm sick of Satan holding it!

Busy, busy, busy

Welcome to my life:

I am a full-time teacher. I work with 17 children that I love more than anything. I dedicate time and energy to ensure that they have a complete and memorable education.

I am a full-time wife and homemaker. Daily I spend time in prayer for my husband. I pray for his leadership and I pray for my submission. I tend to the housework, laundry, etc thankfully with much of his help. :)

I am a part-time student. I am currently taking 9 credits of graduate classes. I am not motivated to do these and continually struggle with seeing these classes as valuable.

I am a math tutor. Recently I was asked to help struggling 1-4 graders with math after school. I do this twice a week.

I am God's child. I work on this daily. I try to know Him more and keep my heart focused on Him. I fall, I fail, I struggle. I want this role to be most important in my life....yet it so often gets crowded out.

BUSYNESS!!!!!!!!

Recently I have been meditating on scripture. In the past I would work on memorizing a verse for a period of time, but I never really meditated on it. Currently I am meditating on a verse that gives God all the credit for everything I do...which as you can see is a lot! The only reason I can do all those things and not loose my mind is because of the strength I receive from Him - the strength that I call to each morning when the alarm sounds. I am so thankful for that strength. So, while some days I feel like my mind is running in a million different directions, I know that God will work in and through me as all the while I am learning dependence on Him.

Thanks for the strength God...
P.S. Summer break is 52 school days away, and I can't wait.

Strength

The last few days have been completely chaotic. SO many things were crammed in and I am completely exhausted, yet completely strengthened. It is so true that when we are weak, He is strong. I have felt very peaceful the last few days and despite our busy schedule, I have been able to connect with friends that have been so encouraging. Praise God for those relationships in life!!!

Wrestling with Worry

"Worry is a mild form of ATHEISM."

As you all probably know, my biggest sin I am working through is my worry. I have many verses posted around my house that remind me to simply trust, yet it is a daily struggle. When I was younger it was really bad. I went through waves of worry so intense that I was crippled by them. I wouldn't eat or sleep for fear of choking or dying. I was so terrified of germs I'd wash my hands until they bled. With God's guidance and through the amazing and persistent efforts of my parents, I was able to beat those extreme tendencies. I remember the day I got so nervous in church that I started to pass out. I had to sit down. My mom grabbed me by the arm and marched me to the youth pastor's office. She pulled out the biggest concordance I'd seen and she watched me write out verse upon verse about worry, fear, and peace. I kept those scraps of papers for years, such a comfort to pull out and refer to. Recently Matt and I have been really praying for our futures and where God would like us to be. Because of the unknown factor, my worries have resurfaced. I am at a much better place in my life and my relationship with MY GOD now that I am older, yet this afternoon I needed to do the same thing that my mom had me do as a ten year old kid. I looked up those verses. Many have been committed to memory by now, yet I wanted to see them, to actually look at the words and claim them. I turned on my pandora station and my ears were flooded with the encouraging words of Chris Rice, Kari Jobe, Selah, Fernando Ortega, Watermark, Keith and Kristyn Getty, Jadon Lavik, etc. As I sang along to the truths in their lyrics, I searched the Bible for those verses of promise. Praying and seeking Him, I found peace this afternoon. Now in a matter of moments I am sure a worry will resurface, and I will remind myself of His control and guiding hand on my life. I will seek out those verses and be reminded of those promises. During my pondering and praying I thought of all the mental images I get when I consider peace. So many images flashed in my mind's eye, laughter, images of a child with her Father. After a few minutes on google, I found the many images I had pictured. In a few quiet minutes I produced a collage on my computer to be my new background, a constant reminder of the peace I find in my Father.



May I keep my eyes on HIM and not the worries around me.

Devotional Distress

Does anyone else ever get overwhelmed with the notion of personal devotions and prayer? Recently I have been making a point to have quality time with God, yet each day I feel like I have not done enough, or sometimes I feel like I did too much and feel frustrated and overloaded. Don't get me wrong, I am learning a lot and feel a greater peace and unity with my Father, yet it seems my attention is pulled in so many directions. Let me explain...

I am in a Bible Study at my church that is currently working through The Pursuit of Godliness. It is the sequel to the book The Pursuit of Holiness. I honestly liked the first book better, although I am not sure why. Perhaps holiness is more easily defined in my brain rather than the broad concept of godliness, although both seem so unattainable. Anyway, that is something that I am wrestling through. Also, I am currently reading the book Calm My Anxious Heart. This book hits home with each paragraph I read. My personality is prone to worry, to focus on the future, or the things out of my control and each chapter convicts and encourages me in a new way. Throughout the week, I spend the bulk of my quiet time working through this book. I underline, mark it up, and do the weekly challenges the book suggests. Currently I am drafting my personal purpose statement. Never have I thought about that concept yet the author Linda Dillow encourages the reader to incorporate verses and quotes to create a life mission statement, an anchor to fall back on when life seems out of control. I have decided on a few items I'd like to include in my statement, yet I don't have it fully ironed out. When I went off to college my aunt gave me a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt and although it is not a Biblically based quote, I love the words. I want to use it as a framework as I begin my early drafting. The quote reads, "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." Now like I said, the quote leaves God completely out of the picture so I am working to weave various Biblical truths into the phrase.
Something like...
"The purpose of life is to live it, to spend every moment in the moment seeking to know Him more and bring all glory to His name. To taste the positive and seemingly negative experiences of life with gratitude, humility, and a teachable spirit. To reach out with open eyes, heart, and hands desiring to put others' needs before mine. To eagerly and without fear seek to place one foot in front of the other following in my Father's guiding footsteps."
Like I said, still a work in progress....

Anyway, I am working through those two very different books as well as reading through the book of James. Throughout my life I have had good devotional spurts and then months with very little devotional time invested. Usually I find closeness with my Savior through Christian books and prayer. Now, there is nothing wrong with using books to guide you, but recently a friend encouraged me to really spend time reading the Bible. At Bible college I spent so much time in the Word that I tended to take it for granted. It has been very good, but now I feel like I am spending so much energy trying to work on so many different aspects of my life. Each avenue is convicting me and challenging me.

Not only do I think devotional time and learning more from God and about God are important, I truly enjoy the aspect of a prayer relationship with God. There is nothing as comforting as a conversation with the Creator of the Universe; the one that holds my very being in His hand and close to His heart. My seven year old sister and I were talking about prayer the other day. We were visiting my parents and she crawled into bed with me one morning. We were just talking about life and laughing when she told me that she prays every night before she goes to bed. We talked about the things that she prays for and I was so convicted by her honest and pure faith. She truly is a prayer warrior. A funny comment she made at the end of the conversation really summed up my feelings sometimes. In all seriousness she looked me in the eye and said, "Jess, sometimes I am just so tired at night but I still want to talk to God. I just close my eyes and say, 'Dear God, PRAY! Amen.' Cuz He knows the things that I usually pray about and then He can take care of them." I laughed when she said it and we talked briefly about how awesome it is that God knows our hearts, then the conversation turned. I thought about that a lot on the way back to our house. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed by all the things I should be praying about and people I should be praying for. Life gets so busy and there are so many hurting people. I want my prayer time to be completely meaningful, yet I get overwhelmed. I want to pray for each of my students by name, all of my family members, my future children, my friends, my husband, the list continues...Growing up, my family had family devotions each night and we had a distinct method for praying: Monday-Missionaries, Tuesday-Teachers, Wednesday-Whoever, Whatever, Thursday-Thanksgiving, Friday-Friends and Family. Perhaps Matt and I should adopt that same system of praying together, then I might not get so overwhelmed by it all. Despite my feelings, it is nice to know that my God already knows the future and while I think it is important to carry specific needs to God, it truly is a comfort to know that he knows our hearts! Thank you for that little reminder, Juliana!!! Romans 8:26-27 says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God."

I want my devotional time to be more passionate and relational not as "list driven." I don't want to worry about if I read enough or prayed for enough people. I want to be challenged, yet don't want to feel completely frustrated and overwhelmed. Maybe this is God breaking down my confident view of myself to see that there are MANY things that I can work on. Perhaps I need to simply chew on things longer rather than take such large bites each day. I'm just learning along the way...

What are you learning?

Results of the Facebook Fast

1. I was able to spend a LOT more time reading the Bible, Christian books, and praying.
2. I did more housework and did not let the dishes accumulate for longer than one day!
3. I really missed seeing what friends were up to and wanted to email a few of them when I realized I didn't even know their email addresses!!!

Moral of the story: It was REALLY hard but good. I learned that I need to limit myself not turn myself off from facebook because it can be a useful tool to connect with and encourage others.

It is my goal to be more purposeful in my facebooking. I already went through and deleted a lot of "quasi-friends." Sounds bad but I need to be building into a reasonable amount of people and I want those people to build into me. I learned in my psychology grad class that there are about 20 people in the world that you can truly have a close, intimate relationship with. Also, our brains max out at about 150 friends and acquaintances. Meaning: There are about 150 people that we could have a meaningful conversation with if we bumped into each other at the grocery store. There could be countless "quasi-friends" that we may see in a grocery store that cause us to turn down a random aisle to avoid an awkward encounter, yet we keep them as facebook friends just for the sake of knowing what they are doing in life.

So, how many real "friends" do you have on facebook?

Facebook Fast

I am fasting from Facebook this week. I know that I spend too much time on there and am using this week to show myself how many other things can be done with that time. Today is the first day and I already found myself pacing the living room wondering what to do to unwind after work....well I found something to do....I just did the dishes. So, here's to hoping this week teaches me to get my priorities right, teaches me to be more conscious of daily household chores, teaches me to spend more time with God. Also this week will be a Gratitude Week, the most recent chapter I read in my book challenged readers to a week with NO COMPLAINING!!! Each day you are to journal the blessings of the day. This week should be fun and challenging!! :)

Calm My Anxious Heart Chapter 4

"Content with My Role"


Just the other day I told Matt that I thought God wanted to teach me contentment with where I am in life. I can't believe how this chapter totally hit home for me. It seems that no matter where I am in my course of life, I am always focusing on the future step. First I was discontent in being a girlfriend, I wanted to be a fiancee. Then I was REALLY discontent with being a fiancee, I REALLY wanted to be a wife. Then I enjoyed being a wife for a bit...Now, I'm discontent with just being a wife, I want to be a mother too. When Matt and I were talking about this about a month ago, I told him that I felt like I was wishing my life away...just looking for the next best thing. This chapter was such an encouragement that most women are just like me. There were a series of emails included in this chapter that seemed so personal and relatable for me. Each woman talked about the stresses of their job, their husband, or their kids and each email said something like, "at least you have ______________________." The women were telling about their lives but doing so in a complaining manner. Not only did they "update" the friend about family affairs, they did so by alluding to the fact that the other person's life was somehow better..."at least you have _______________________." Interesting. I wonder how many facebook statuses I have posted that have been complaints masked as "status updates." I bet many of them suggest frustration or discontentment with my present God-given role. Just like an actress receives a role in a movie, we are assigned our life roles by the all-knowing God. Also, our roles can change just like roles change for actresses with each new film. We can either accept our current role and do our best, or we simply gripe and complain, jealous of another woman's role.

"If we want to be women of contentment, we must choose to accept our portion, our assigned roles from God. We must make the choice to dwell on the positive aspects of our role in life. If we don't we'll be discontent, always wanting something different from what we've been given."

Jesus was given a role that he took on even though he knew it would lead him to a painful death. Instead of complaining and telling God that it was not fair, he humbled himself and took on the role of a servant (Matthew 20:28). May I always seek to follow Jesus' example as I take on the various roles my Director gives me, content with my purpose and my role for that time being.

Calm My Anxious Heart Ch. 1

"I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation." Phil 4:12

Throughout my entire college career at BBC I had this verse written on a 3X5 card on my memo board. I read it all the time. I knew that I had been blessed in so many ways and simply needed to pause and be thankful for my situations. I needed to be content in all that God had given to me. It wasn't until the other night when I read this chapter that I actually focused on the verb in this verse. In the past I focused on the direct object being the secret of contentment. I completely missed out on the notion that this is a learned thing. Paul wasn't always content!!! He had learned through his life experiences that he could BE content with whatever was brought his way. Wow! I too can learn this contentment!!! There are so many times I look ahead and worry or anticipate the future. I enjoy my life but always look to the next step. It isn't that I am an overwhelmingly discontent person, but I focus on what will come or what I want to come rather than what is happening at the moment. I feel like this is a great time in my life to learn some contentment. We are at a crossroad. We are almost debt-free, married for 2.5 years, wondering if PA will be our forever home or if we should look around before "officially" settling down. I'd love to just get settled, to buy a house and start a family. Some days I focus on that so much that I forget to be thankful for this stage of life. We have our needs met, wonderful jobs, and friends and family that deeply care for us. I am learning that while I'd love to be in a different stage of life, I will miss this stage when I get to the next.

I don't need to be overwhelmed and anxious about the future but I need to be content where we are and prayerfully seek His face for future direction. I love how the previous passage in Philippians reads, "Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Wherever I am in my journey of life, I can seek his face and He will supply peace.

Peace and contentment, that is what I long for. For whatever comes my way, if my heart is wrapped in those two principles, my natural instinct will be to praise and seek Him, trusting that He will supply the strength for any given circumstance.

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World

I have just finished reading the book, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanne Weaver. The entire premisis comes from the story from the book of Luke.

Luke 10:38-42
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Naturally I have a Martha heart. I have a heart that is driven by tasks, a list of what should be completed in each day. There is no greater satisfaction than climbing into bed knowing that all the housework is complete, I can wake up to a clean home! Now, there are countless days that I don't go to bed feeling like that and those are the days I feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and feel like I am not good enough. Yes, I have a Martha heart and yes I live in a Martha-mentality driven world. There are things to be done, places to be, friends to help, children to teach. (Honestly as I wrote that last sentence I remembered that I promised to make a new bookmark for my autistic student. That I CAN'T forget...see I tell you, I have to-do lists EVERYWHERE...I even text myself reminders!) Anyway, it is not natural for me to take time to have a MARY HEART, a heart devoted and dedicated to God. A heart that sits peacefully and reverantly at His feet ready to soak in His every word. Now, my personality tells me that if I can't do something well, to not try and do it at all. This is an easy cop-out for me in my devotional life. I don't put devotions on my personal or mental check list because I feel like I will fail at doing them. So, I sit back content and happy when I do get to them since then it is like a bonus! Wow, I did something extra that wasn't on my to-do list!!!! What an awful mentality! I hate to fail. Recently I have been doing a better job with devotions and my prayer life, yet I still seem to fall short in my eyes. I don't do it everyday, or I don't spend enough time. I seem to struggle with competition against myself. Can I do better? Why don't I feel like I'm growing? Does praying occasionally throughout the day count as a prayer life or do I need to actually sit down and have a prayer journal and a systematic way of praying? Does it count if I don't seem like I have time to pray for everyone so I just say one big prayer and hope it covers them all? See, I don't want to fail so I just try to get it all in somehow yet in doing so, I do it half-heartedly. Yet, at least I do something, so I feel accomplished...yet not...still somehow empty. I need to just forsake my personality and seek HIM AND WHAT HE HAS FOR ME TO LEARN. A quote from the book reads, "In this story, we should find not our personality type, but the kind of heart that Christ longs for us to have. A heart centered on Him alone." It is not my personality that should drive me. It should be my heart that drives me to be completely surrendered to Him. A heart that may feel weak and dry that seeks to be filled and quenched only by Him. I am so quick to look elsewhere and try to fill that void. I fill it with "Christian things." I talk about prayer. I help others with problems and seek to feel used. When I feel used, then I feel good...for a while....then I feel empty and tired. I put Christian "work" before "worship." It is like putting the cart before the horse. I need to first seek to be strengthened by Him before my work gets the better of me. My work...which quickly becomes my worry...which quickly becomes my overwhelming distraction. "When we're distracted, discouragement is just around the corner. Weariness creeps in as life overpowers us. It causes us to say and do things we would never consider saying or doing otherwise. Discouragement breaks down our perspective and our defenses." Thus the vicious cycle continues...Frustration, self-pity, worry, self-reliance...a heart that has let the Martha world dominate her world. I may live in this Martha world, but I want to have a Mary heart....not a Martha heart. I will glance around, but gaze toward Him. I may not always succeed, but that is OKAY. When life gets crazy, I need to pause my brain that focuses on my to-do list, and push play on my interaction and relationship with God. "The rougher the day, the more I need to spend time with my Savior."

"I've learned my strength is not found in how intensely I struggle...but in how completely I surrender." - Ken Gire

His Trials

Recently I got an awesome new scrapbooking design program. I have been able to make a book of our wedding, a family calendar, and postcards for our youth group kids. Last month I made a wife's prayer book. I used the book "Power of a Praying Wife" to create a daily prayer book to pray for my husband. I had it bound and gave a copy to my mom as well as some of my other friends. Now we can pray each day for a different aspect of our husband's life. I also included a verse to go along with each topic. This has helped me to be able to pray in a more effective way. Also, it provides an accountability aspect with my mom.

Today's topic was "His Trials." This morning when I flipped to today's page, I was a bit confused. A few days ago I had prayed for his temptations and wondered as to why the author of the original book had choosen to use both of those words. They seemed somewhat synonymous to me, trials and temptations, they seemed interchangeable in my mind. For my devotions today, I decided to do forego my typical study and did some research on the difference between these two words. What I found was that trials are certain situations or circumstances that God brings into our life to test and improve our faith and patience levels. Temptations on the other hand are specific sin issues that test our sin nature. One is meant to develop and one is meant to destroy. We can bear the weight of both of those things if we have a solid footing in Christ. While temptations are linked with sin and human nature, trials are linked to growth and spiritual development. I honestly hadn't thought about the two words before today, yet now I see how they are completely different. One seeks to develop and one seeks to destroy. Currently, one of our pastors is doing a series on Job. I guess my devos thoughts today tie in directly. Isn't it cool when something like that happens? Job was faced with trials and temptations. The trial was meant to improve his faith in God while the temptation was intended to get Job discouraged, frustrated, doubtful, and ultimately according to his wife, to curse God and die. I wouldn't blame him if he did all of those things. Honestly, it sounds bad, but that kind of pain and heartache seems so difficult to comprehend. Yet, that trial, brought on by Satan, allowed by God, was to prove Job's faith in God and to also improve his faith in God. "Blessed be the name of the Lord"

So, all that to say, may we seek to turn away temptations and to praise God for his faithfulness even in whatever trials may come our way.

God, I pray for Matt and his past, present, and future trials. May he use his past trials as a bringboard and memory of your faithfulness over time. May his present trials teach him lessons of your goodness and provision. May his future trials be light and his heart ready to bear whatever comes his way.

The Past

I just kind of rediscovered my own blog today. I realized that I am not a big blogger. I am a thinker. I spend SO much time thinking but feel frustrated or overwhelmed when I even consider recording my thoughts on either paper or computer. I want my handwriting to be legible, my grammar to be proper, and know that I will spend too much time rereading and analyzing my own writings. Pretty pathetic attitude laced with OCD tendencies, I know...all that to say, that I wish I was more of a journaling person. I reread my xanga site from college the other day. It is so funny to see how naive and fun-loving I was. I spent time blogging about completely unimportant events yet now I simply laugh at those memories. I was able to read about the first time I hung out with a "new friend" named Matt. WOW! I am thankful I do have those memories recorded...now just how to get them off the vast world wide web and into a book. (Perhaps a new project I will embark on. :)

When we first got married I had every intention of journaling so that I would have those memories to look back on. Memories of the honeymoon, our first week back in our new home as a new couple, our first fight, the struggle to make ends meet, the many provisions and direct answers to prayers. I wholeheartedly regret that I did not pen those memories as they were happening. I'd love to go back and read the emotions linked with our first fight or the joy abounding as God provided a car for us. I have those memories in my head and my heart but they are distant, clouded, and faint. I wish I could hold on to those raw emotions and see more vividly how God has worked. Right before we got married I heard a sermon about the children of Israel and how they made an altar to remember God's deliverance. Then the men took those rocks home as a daily reminder of God's ever present hand at work. The speaker encouraged each person to start collecting items for an altar box. Since our marriage, I have done that. I am so thankful to have that small box filled with little reminders. A note from a casual friend that accompanied $300, a photo of the car God provided, the note Matt wrote me on my first day of subbing, my first official teaching contract....the list goes on. So, even though I don't have the heat-of-the-moment emotions documented, I have those simple reminders forever. May I use those small items to recall the emotions and details of each scene as I review the filmstrip of my life, each scene flowing perfectly into the next. By looking backward, may I be reminded to trust the director as the future snapshots come into focus, each a polariod that only becomes clear in His timing. For now, contentment in the future because of His faithfulness in my past.

I'd like to be more of a blogger, I really would. I'd love to have experiences documented, thoughts shared, and blessings recorded. Let's see where this gets me...